


When The Night Has Come

by mdh



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:16:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdh/pseuds/mdh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'd do anything for Sam Beckett." How many times had Al Calavicci thought that, said it, believed it to be literally true? Now he knew he'd had no idea where that vow would take him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Night Has Come

**Author's Note:**

> This was written a long time ago, I think about 1999. It was accepted for two different zines and never made it into print. It has been archived at the WWOMB for awhile so it isn't new to the web. There is something I should warn for, but that would spoil the surprise. At least I hope you'll be surprised. You'll know when you get there. If my writer's block ever breaks I have some ideas for a sequel. Don't hold your breath. This is not a story for those people who love Donna Elesee.
> 
> The song quotes at the beginning and end are from 'Stand By Me' as performed by Ben E. King; written by Ben E. King, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stroller. I have no rights to the song or to the characters or concept of the show Quantum Leap. The original story posted here is mine alone.

'When the night has come,  
and the land is dark  
And the moon is the only  
light we'll see...'

March 8, 2000  
Somewhere in New Mexico 

The desert night was cold, freezing, in fact. But Al Calavicci didn't feel the penetrating frost. There was ice enough in his soul to numb him to any mundane physical discomforts.  
Not that there was anything necessarily commonplace about his physical complaints. His bones ached. He felt gutted and hollow. His veins burned and his head felt as if someone was stuffing cotton into his skull, slowly displacing his brain.

He was dying. And he was all alone. He'd made sure of that. No one would ever find his body out here in the middle of nowhere. His disappearance would probably become one of those mysteries that people talked about into the next generation. A legend. He rather liked that idea. Better, anyway, that nobody know the truth. The truth that would die with him, the truth of what he'd nearly become. There were things worse than death and Al knew he was making the right choice.

His only true regret was that he wouldn't get a chance to say goodbye to Sam Beckett. And that he was leaving him still trapped out there, at the mercy of whatever force was controlling his leaps in Time.

Of course, Sam wouldn't exactly be left all alone. Somebody else at Project Quantum Leap would take over the job of Observer, of being Sam's lifeline. Maybe Beeks. Or Donna. Donna had always quietly resented the fact that Sam had chosen Al over her for that job. Although she'd hidden her feelings pretty well from Sam, Al had known. This would be the perfect opportunity for her to take over. 

Al stumbled and fell onto the gritty, hard-baked ground. He could feel his strength slowly receding, seeping inexorably from him like water down a slow drain. A deep, sharp yearning suddenly pierced him, a longing for things he refused to name. He pushed the feeling away and curled into a ball on his side, waiting. One way or another, it surely wouldn't be long now.

"Al? Al, you can't die. I need you, please, Al...."

Al slowly turned his head, searching for the source of the impossibly familiar voice. A shimmering vision awaited him, the image of Sam Beckett with tears in his eyes.

"Don't cry, Sammy," Al whispered. "It's really better this way. If you knew everything, you'd understand."

"I understand that you're leaving me. I can't make it without you, Al. You're the only one who can bring me back."

"The team will do that, Sam." It was hard to talk but he managed to make his voice calm and reassuring. "Or God, or Fate, or Whoever will release you someday. Either way, you don't really need me to get home."

"I do," the image of Sam protested and moved closer, looking Al urgently in the face. "You're the only one who can figure out how to bring me home!"

Al gave a weak bark of laughter and painfully cleared his throat. "Sam, I may have degrees in physics and engineering but I'm no freaking genius. If your damned hybrid super-computer can't figure out how to bring you back, how do you expect me to?"

"Because you've been given a gift, Al. One you can use to find the flaw in the retrieval program."  
Al shook his head. "You don't know what you're talking about. The last thing I'd call this is a gift." He squinted at the image of Sam. "You're not even really here," he accused suddenly. "You're just some vision my subconscious dreamed up to keep me from giving up. A survival instinct, using my guilt at leaving the real Sam."

"That's right, Al, I'm part of your subconscious. But I'm also part of Sam, some of his mesons and neurons that didn't swap back after the simo-leap. And I can tell you that you do have the key to bringing the real Sam home. If you don't throw it away by dying."

"You think I want to die? I'm trying to save my soul, here," Al snapped, feeling a surge of anger that doubled every pain and made his head swim. "Do you think I'd leave Sam hanging if there was any way I could help him? I'd do anything for Sam Beckett."

"Talk is cheap, Al, and actions speak. You're running away and you're running out on Sam." The image reared back, seeming to glow faintly in the moonlight. "Some part of him will know that. And he'll wonder why. If he ever manages to get home and digs into Ziggy's files looking for the why, Al, what do you think it will do to him if he figures out the reason?"

"He'll blame himself," Al whispered.

"Yes." The tone of the mirage's voice was chiding and sad. "Do you want to leave him with that? Do you want your soul at the cost of the peace in his?"

The image faded out and Al struggled over onto his back, tired eyes searching the sky. The stars were diming in the east, the horizon lightening. Dawn and the sun were coming. He was miles out in the desert with no shelter. Even if he tried, he couldn't make it now. That had been the point of his painful trek-- so he couldn't simply change his mind at the last minute. But now...

'I'd do anything for Sam.' How many times had he thought that, said it, believed it to be literally true. Even, he'd thought, proved it once or twice. Now he knew he could never have imagined where that vow would take him.  
Al sighed and pushed himself into a sitting position. After several tries he made it to his feet. Gravity pulled at him as he lurched back the way he'd come, the misery in his body only eclipsed by the dread in his soul. But if Sam Beckett needed him, he couldn't bow out yet. He wouldn't, no matter what it cost him. Or anyone else.

March 30, 2000  
Project Quantum Leap Complex  
Near White Sands,New Mexico

It was one of the longest between leap intervals they'd ever had. Three weeks and counting. As she ran a routine systems check of the equipment in the control room, Donna Elesee's nerves were stretched tight with anticipation. She was particularly on edge since they were going to make another attempt to retrieve her husband as soon as Ziggy announced that Sam was landing somewhere in Time.

There had been many retreival attempts in the years since Sam first stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Every one a failure. Donna was afraid to hope this time, ashamed to give up, though sometimes she wanted to let go. Sometimes she just wanted a resolution of any kind, an end to the limbo of waiting, to the pain of hanging onto the memories of a marriage that sometimes didn't even feel real.

"I think it's gonna be soon."

Donna jumped at the low voice, so lost in her thoughts she hadn't even heard the footsteps approaching. she looked up at Al Calavicci.

"Are you turning psychic, Al?

He shrugged. "Just a hunch."

Donna glanced down at the control panel in front of her, checking that all the signal lights were still showing green, no systems or equipment trouble looming. She could feel Al's gaze on her. It made her vaguely uncomfortable. Sometimes, lately, she almost felt he could read her mind.

"I'd still like to know how you came up with the new retrieval program," she said, making conversation to hide her unease but also genuinely curious. "But I don't suppose you'll tell me, will you?"

"I already told you," Al answered her flatly. 

"Yes, that you got inspired." Donna shook her head, annoyed that he head written a new retrieval program that she didn't understand but that Ziggy proclaimed coherent and extremely viable. "I don't understand how this program can work. How can we retrieve Sam if he's not actually in a Leap? We can't even get a proper fix on when or where he is."

"With the new program, Ziggy will be able to tell when Sam's about to land somewhere. All we have to do is make sure we get some kind of lock on him the instant before he touches down and that's when we'll grab him," Al explained, again. He felt like he'd had this conversation at least a dozen times, mostly with Donna.  
"Theoretically, without a host aura to ground him there, and nobody here to take his place, the pull toward his own time should outweigh a pull to the past. Ziggy says there's a ninety-five percent chance it'll work."

"Theoretically, he shouldn't have gotten trapped in the first place," Donna said tightly.

Al shrugged. His eyes were deep and dark. Looking into them almost made Donna shiver. It was as if impenetrable, possibly terrible secrets were shrouded in their depths. He'd been subtly different lately, ever since Sam's last, rather odd leap. For almost two weeks after Sam had leaped out, no one had known where Al was. When he'd reappeared back at the complex, he would only say he'd had some personal business. And then, a couple of days later, he'd just walked into Donna's office with a new program for retrieving Sam. He'd laid the computer printout on her desk, complete with Ziggy's analysis and prediction for success. When she'd asked him who wrote it, she didn't quite believe him when he'd said he did. When she'd asked him how, he would only say he was inspired by a new perspective on Time, his tone of voice capitalizing the word. She had jokingly asked him if he'd made some kind of deal with the devil and he'd laughed and made a clever comeback, but there had been something in his eyes -- something she found she didn't want to explore. Now, sometimes, when he looked at her, she remembered her jest and wondered if she'd really been joking.

"Sam has put right a lot of wrongs for other people," Al told her now. "Maybe Somebody's ready to let us do the same for him."

"Admiral Calavicci, Dr. Elesee, I predict that Dr. Beckett will be leaping in two point three minutes," Ziggy's cool voice announced I suggest you prepare to implement the retrieval program."

The Quantum Leap team lauched into a moment of frantic activity. Donna began her routine, double checking everything. Gooshie was at his station montitoring Ziggy and Al hurried into the Imaging Chamber so that Ziggy could use his brain waves, already linked to Sam's, as one end of the 'string' that ran through time to Sam, to get a fix on him.

Al wiped dry palms on his jacket, closed his eyes and concentrated on Sam. Ziggy's voice was counting down in the background and as he neared 'zero,' Al felt a pulling sensation, a recoil, and a surge of energy that settled into a sense of profound peace. When he opened his eyes he knew Sam was home without needing to hear Ziggy's confirmation.

The welcome home party was spontaneous and loud. It filled the rec hall and spilled into the corridors of the Project Quantum Leap complex. Al figured that even without the guest of honor the party would continue for days, even bigger and longer than the one they'd thrown after Sam's first leap. Before they'd discovered that the dream of achieving time travel had turned into a nightmare.

Sam was still hanging in there, though. In the center of the crowd, flushed with the joy of being home and giving one-armed hugs to everybody who stopped to talk with him. His other arm was firmly in possession of Donna Elesee, his hand clasped tightly in hers.

Al was standing on the fringes, doing what had become a habit over the last five years; observing Sam. It was good to see him happy and totally without tension for a change. The sight was worth every sacrifice Al had made. Even the last one.

Every once in a while, as if feeling Al's gaze on him, Sam would look straight up into Al's eyes and smile. But the smile and Sam's look both had a questioning edge to them. Al knew he was sending out strange vibes, that Sam must be wondering why he was holding himself so aloof from the celebration and why he had given Sam only the briefest of hugs in the waiting room after the leap back. Why he kept slipping away, every time Sam worked through the crowd to get closer to him.

The truth was, Sam was so vividly, vibrantly real, that it hurt to be close to him. It made Al feel things he didn't want to acknowledge and it scared him, to think about Sam like that. He kept telling himself that when he got used to being around Sam in the solid flesh again he'd be able to handle it. Tonight it was just too fresh and he was playing it safe by keeping some distance between them.

Al knew he should be trying harder to act more like the Al Calavicci Sam was used to seeing. He should be in the thick of the party, a woman on each arm and a drink in his hand. There were plenty of willing ladies, he could even lure one of them away as an excuse to leave before Sam managed to catch up with him. But his heart wasn't in it, even as a smokescreen. And these days his desires weren't as simple as they used to be.

Al watched Sam draw Donna closer and whisper in her ear. She nodded and they started toward the door. It looked like the real reunion was about to begin. At the door, Sam turned back and his eyes found Al again. Al raised his hand in a salute, giving Sam a deliberately knowing smile. Sam didn't blush, as Al had half expected he would. He merely tilted his head with a look Al couldn't interpret and slipped out the door behind Donna.

Al gave them a few minutes to get through the revelers in the corridors before he made his own way out. It was time he was leaving, too. The night was passing and he had his own needs to consider.

In the elevator, Al punched the button for the top floor and the exit, two levels up. But the elevator dropped instead, the floor numbers flashing by in the wrong direction.

"Hey!"Al protested. "I wanna go up, not down!"

Ziggy's voice floated down from the speaker in the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Admiral Calavicci. I have been asked to inform you that you have an urgent call in your office."

"Who from?" Al growled. "I already talked to those nozzles in D.C."

"I do not have that information for you, Admiral."

Al narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Ziggy admiting he didn't have even the simplest information? He had a feeling he was being set-up and when he walked into his office, his instincts were proven correct.

Sam was sitting behind Al's desk.

Al carefully didn't let his face show more or less than the mild surprise Sam would expect.  
"I'm shocked, Sam. You asked Ziggy to lie for you?"

Sam shrugged. "Whatever works. Isn't that your motto? Besides she didn't really lie, he said he'd been asked to inform you, not that you actually had a call."

Al crossed to the chair in front of the desk, casually dropping into it. "I think you're splitting moral hairs. You've been around me too long." He reached into his pocket and drew out his lighter. He needed something to do with his hands and something to calm his nerves. Fortunately, tobacco still had that effect on him. "Why didn't you just have Ziggy say you wanted me?"

The way you've been avoiding me all night, I wasn't sure you'd come."

Al raised and eyebrow and Sam tilted his head, watching him light up. "What's wrong, Al?"

Al blew out a large puff of smoke and pulled the cigar frim his mouth, studying the lit end to make sure he had the burn going evenly. "Is that why you shanghaied me down here? Cause you think I've been avoiding you?"

"Haven't you?" Sam looked at him levelly. "I know you well enough to know when you're acting weird. I know you well enough to know when you're acting, period." Al's eyes met his over the cigar and Sam leaned forward, putting a snap into his voice. "So will you cut the dammed crap and talk to me? For once, will you please not make me drag whatever it is our of you?"

Al sighed. "Sam there is nothing wrong. I've been hanging back because I figured you had enough people crowding around you. And you and me haven't exactly been strangers these last five years. It's everybody else you gotta catch up with. Like Donna." Al gave him a look. "Where is she, by the way? I figured you two would be very busy about now, getting reacquainted.

Sam shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on Al's face. "I know your routines, Al, and you're not going to distract me off the subject. I want to know what's going on with you."  
"You know, I talked to Verbena, before we pulled you back." Al made a vague gesture with his cigar. "She talked about delayed stress and how it can show up in different forms. One of which is paranoia."  
"You're calling me paranoid?" Sam looked half exasperated, half plain mad. "You are the one refusing to answer a simple question!"  
"I already answered it but you didn't believe me." Al looked back at Sam calmly "I could make up a problem, if it'll make you happy. Hey, maybe that's it," he said, as if suddenly enlightened. "You're not paranoid, you're just not happy unless there's a problem to solve. Which, I guess is logical after constantly going from crisis to crisis for so long."

Sam merely looked at him and Al shrugged. "It's just a theory. If you'd rather call me a liar than admit the possibility that your instincts are magnafloozled, I can take it. I've been called worse," he grinned.  
"I'm sure you have." Sam rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "I didn't mean to call you a liar. I just wish you''d be straight with me."

"Sammy, if I had a problem you could help me with, I'd talk to you. Haven't I always?"

"Sometimes." Sam eyed him with an expression that said he wasn't exactly dazzled by Al's fancy footwork. "Does that mean you have a problem I can't help you with?"

"It means,"Al replied, letting some exasperation of his own show, "that there is nothing for you to be concerned about. Except getting used to being in your own life again." Al reached to the desk for an ashtray and flicked cigar ashes into it. "Speaking of which, Donna's probably waiting for you. Or getting ready to send out a search party for you."

"You seem anxious to get rid of me."

"Jeeze, you're like a dog with a bone. I am not avoiding you. I'd love to spend some time shooting the breeze with you. But it's your first night home. I would think you'd have better things to do than to worry about me acting weird or hiding some nonexistent problem. You've been a boy scout long enough, Sam. You gotta learn to put yourself first."

"Like you put yourself first while I was leaping? How much did you give up to be there for me, Al?" Sam's eyes were soft and knowing. "I can't make those years up to you, but I can be there for you now. If you'll let me."

Al cleared his throat and stood up. It was such an effort to move and speak easily when he was close enough to Sam to have practically every sense vibrating with input. Sight, scent, hearing. Only touch was missing-- and taste. Al shivered slightly, turning the movement into a stretch. "I'll keep that in mind, if a problem comes my way. But for now, it's been a long day. I'm gonna do what I'd started when you lured me in here and take off for the night."

Al headed for the door. Sam stood up and followed hm. "Al?"

Al paused reluctantly and turned. Sam faced him from a couple of feet away, hands shoved in his pockets. Al had to tighten his control at the look he saw on the handsome face. "What is it, Sam?"

"I learned something important while I was leaping. Actually, I learned a lot of things, but this is something I wish I'd realized a long time ago. Before it was too late with my dad. I learned it's important to say how you feel about someone because you never know how much time you're going to have with them or what may happen. Even if the person already knows how you feel, it's important for them to hear the words, and it's just as important for you to say them."

"Sam--"

"I know you don't like mushy stuff, and I don't expect you to say anything back, but I have to tell you something.' Sam's gaze was an almost physical force, holding Al in place. "You mean the world to me. I love you, Al."

Al turned his face away from Sam's look with an effort. He lowered his head, more moved by the firmly spoken words than he would have believed possible. Of course he'd known that Sam cared, but to hear it-- It somehow made everything all right. Even what he knew would never be right again. It was right because it had saved Sam. And he realized he had needed to hear Sam cared. Maybe Sam needed the same from him.

Al cleared his throat, but he couldn't look up. He didn't trust himself at that moment to look at Sam and maintain his control. But he made himself speak his heart.

"The feeling is entirely mutual, Sam. No matter what happens from here on out, always know that I love you. I always have and I always will."

"Al." Sam took two quick steps toward the other man who was still turned away, not looking at him. "Whatever's wrong, let me help, please." And without warning, Sam grabbed him, turning him around and hugging him tightly.

Startled by Sam's abrupt action, Al was frozen in his embrace for an instant, overwhelmed by pure, sensory  
overload. Sam's body was tight against him, warm and solid and so real. His breath was hot against Al's ear, his scent clean and male and seductive. Al was surrounded, wrapped in a virtual fest for the senses.  
A shockingly intense appetite stirred, the desire snapping Al's immobility and his control. He hugged back hungrily, even possessively, burying his face in Sam's neck, feeling the pulse of Sam's hot blood being driven through the carotid artery just beneath the warm, soft skin under his mouth. Al opened his lips to taste, nuzzling...

"Al," Sam whispered and the sound of his name in that voice was enough to reach the part of Al that was still sane. A fraction of Sam's heartbeat later, Al tore himself out of the younger man's grasp. Before Sam could move let alone follow him, Al was gone.

Al didn't stop moving until he was in the outside air. The desert night was cold, the stark, moon washed scenery eerie and strange. But Al embraced the cold as it cleared his fogged mind. And the landscape was no stranger that his life of late.

Al leaned against the rough stone wall of the main PQL building, regaining his control. It had been so close. In just one more moment, one more fraction of an instant...

Al shivered, but not from the cold. In one more hearbeat, it would have been too late. And what if he hadn't been able to stop, even if--

Al shivered even harder and turned his mind resolutely from the thought. Nothing had happened and nothing would happen because he was going to see to it that it didn't. Even if it meant giving Sam up completely, stepping out of his life entirely and immediately.

Al felt a distinct pain at that thought, but he knew he couldn't let that make a difference. Because at the same time, he was also feeling a stirring of the relentless appetite that had almost made him cross the line with Sam.  
Al shoved away from the wall and straightened his clothes automatically as he moved toward his car. He could find someone to satisfy his physical hunger but nobody except Sam Beckett could ever satisfy the craving of his soul. What soul he had left. And he'd be dammed if he dragged Sam into this new perversion.

Al cranked his car's engine, glancing into the rear view mirror as he started backing out of the parking space. He stared into the reflective surface for several moments, caught by what it revealed, a graphic reminder of the new Al Calavicci, the one even Sam wouldn't recognize. He finally gunned his engine and peeled out of the lot, giving the guards at the exit a show, moving onto the open road at high speed. But he couldn't outrun the thought that he was already dammed.

By the time Sam recovered from his own shock, not even Al's cigar smoke lingered in the hall. He tracked back to Al's desk, dropping into the padded chair in a daze. He could still feel the intensity in the way Al had clutched him so tightly, the sheer sensuality of the sly mouth that had brushed his neck. And the blunt reality of the hardness pressed against his thigh.

Was this the problem that Al wouldn't admit existed? That he desired more than friendship from his best friend? The way that Al had bolted out-- what was he thinking now? That Sam was repulsed or that he wouldn't want to be close to Al anymore? Would Al pull back from their friendship? Build this thing into a barrier between them? Be scared to come back, now that his secret was out?

AL didn't know that Sam had a secret too. He'd never told Al about certain experiences he'd had his first years at college. Explorations of his sexuality. He'd never told Al that he was bisexual.

Sam had never gone much beyond those first experiences with men. The sex had been good, even compelling in a way it had never been with women. But it was hard to find the emotional response he needed with another man. Or maybe he'd just picked the wrong men. In any case, finding out he was Bi hadn't changed his life in any big way. And it had never seemed to be something that he should bring up with Al, in any timeline.

If he was honest with himself, he knew that he'd been afraid that if he told Al, it might make a difference in the way Al acted around him, or the way Al perceived him. Just the same fears Al was probably having now in regard to Sam.

He wanted to talk to Al, to reassure him, but he realized he had no idea where Al had gone. Or even where to look for him. Had Al kept his apartment in Alamogordo? Verbena Beeks had mentioned that Al and Tina had recently broken up but did Al have a new girlfriend he might be visiting?

Minor details that suddenly brought home to Sam just how much he didn't know about his best friend's present life, even though he'd seen Al every day when he was in a leap.

Sam swiveled the chair around to face Al's computer terminal. With a few swift key strokes he activated the voice link to Ziggy. Sam didn't believe in wasting time; when you need information, go to the best source available.  
"Ziggy --"

"Sam? Are you ready to leave?"

Sam jumped at the human voice from behind him. He turned around just as Donna reached his side. She bent down to kiss his lips and smiled at him. "You didn't forget me again, did you?" she teased.

"No, of course not," he replied, although he certainly had not been thinking about her for the last several minutes.  
"Good, because I have plans for your first night home that require you to be in full possession of all your faculties." Donna stepped around his legs and settled lightly onto his lap, putting her arms around his neck. "Mental and physical." She slid her torso against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. She kissed her way up his jawline, interposing tiny but sharp bites between kisses.

"Ah, Donna, wait." Sam pulled back, grasping her forearms to push her away a bit. "Somethings come up," he said.

"Already?" Donna raised an eyebrow at him, wriggling a little on his lap. Sam could feel himself blush.

"No, I mean something else. I mean, I have to take care of something, right away."

"Sam, I know you're anxious to start reviewing the leap files, but you just got home a few hours ago. Can't you wait a few days to start working? Even a few hours?"

"It's not work." Sam brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek and looked into her soft, brown eyes. "It's Al. He's acting a little strange and I want to talk to him, make sure he's alright."

"I thought you already talked to him. Isn't that why you asked me to give you a few minutes with him, so you could talk?"

"Well, yes. And we did talk, but he wouldn't really tell me anything. And then he left." Sam took one of her hands in his.

"I'm afraid he may be upset about something. I want to clear things up before it gets blown out of proportion. I don't want him to have time to brood about it. You know how he pulls into himself."

Donna laced her fingers with Sam's. "Can't it wait untill tomorrow? It's been so long, Sam. I've missed you so much."

"I know," Sam whispered, feeling guilty. But he couldn't ignore the sense of urgency he felt to talk to Al immediately. He brought Donna's hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her slender fingers. "But if I don't clear this up tonight, it's going to be on my mind until I do." He smiled. "You don't want me distracted from your plans, do you?"

Donna stood up, irritation in her voice. "If you'd rather be with Al than with me just say so." She crossed her arms over her chest. "But if you're planning on clearing up whatever's wrong with Al, it's going to take more than one night."

"What does that mean." he asked, surprised by her tone.

Donna took a breath, making an effort to keep her temper. "Just that there's always something going on with Al. He's been particularly strange since your last leap, but I'm sure it's the same old thing." Donna brushed her hair back and looked at Sam pleadingly. "You'll never be able to fix Al's life, Sam. You'll just be wasting more time that we could have together if you try."

"What do you mean, he's been acting strange since my last leap?" Sam was feeling a tingle of premonition. "What's he done?"

Donna shook her head, exasperated. "I'm trying to tell you that you have to start putting our marriage first and all you heard is that Al has a problem. We have a problem, Sam. If you want to run after Al more that you want to be with your wife on your first night home, we have a big problem."

"Donna, don't be this way." Sam stood up and reached for her, but she stepped back. "If I didn't think it was very important -- "

"Oh, I know how important Al is," Donna interrupted. "Don't bother with a long explanation, Sam. I've been here before. I should be used to second place by now. Leaving me to go to Al is practically a habit of yours."

Sam's jaw firmed at the memory her words brought back. Switching places with Al on a leap, coming home, becoming the Observer. And going back into the accelerator to prevent Al from being murdered in 1945 even though Donna had pleaded with him to stay with her.

"I couldn't let Al die," Sam said.

"I know." Donna lifted her chin. "But I'm not going to keep waiting patiently while you run after Al and hold his hand over his latest break-up or whatever crisis he's working on. He's your friend, yes. But I'm your wife. I think that should give me first place."

"This isn't a contest, Donna." Sam ran his hand over his face. This was feeling like familiar territory. He could remember arguing with Donna about the time he spent with Al, and that he could never understand why she reacted so jealously if he was with Al for a few hours when she never thought twice about his friendships with other women. "It's not about who I care about more. It's about not turning my back on a man who's always been there for me when it counted -- even when it wasn't easy or convenient for him. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand me, and you're right, we do have a big problem. And it isn't Al."

"Fine." Hurt and anger laced her tone in equal measure. "If you want to think of me as the villain, go ahead. I'm only fighting for our marriage."

Donna crossed her arms over her chest, looking vulnerable to Sam behind the angry front. He knew that his years away from her had been cruelly trying to a woman whose trust in men had been so fragile to begin with, thanks to her father. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her any more but he was no longer certain he could give her what she needed to be happy. Or that he really wanted to try.

"Donna, we have a lot of things to talk about, a lot of issues and feelings to sort through." He took her shoulders gently in his hands and took a deep breath. "I was gone for a long time. We've both changed. We're not the same people we were before I leaped. We need to find out if the people we've become still want the same things."

"What are you saying?" Donna searched his face, apprehension in her gaze."

"Just that I think we have a lot of re-evaluating to do."

Donna stepped away from him, her features tightening. "Are you going to re-evaluate your relationship with Al, too? Or is it just our marriage you're having seconds thoughts about?"

"Donna, this is not about Al."

Donna made a shushing gesture with her hand and shook her head. "You know what, Sam, maybe it doesn't matter anymore. Just do what ever you feel you have to do and I'll do the same. I just wish I knew what power it is that Al has that keeps you from seeing him as he really is."

Donna whirled and left almost as quickly as had Al. But Sam, after one aborted move toward the doorway didn't try to stop her. He felt guilty for causing her pain and a part of him wanted to go after her and make everything better with a few soothing words and touches. Even now it wouldn't take much effort to make up with her. But it wouldn't resolve the basic problem, either.

Sam wasn't even sure he knew the full scope of the fundamental problem, and he was certain Donna didn't. He hadn't been back in his own time long enough to register all the changes in his life and his view of the world since that first leap. The only thing he was still certain of, in his heart and his life, was his friendship with Al. And even Al appeared to have changed without his noticing. Or something more than a newly discovered passion for his best friend was bothering him.

'He's been acting particularly strange since your last leap...'

Sam closed his eyes, feeling again that tingle down his spine. It couldn't have anything to do with the leap. It was just a coincidence...

"Ziggy?" Sam said.

The computer replied instantly, as if he'd been waiting since Donna had interrupted Sam's contact with her. "Yes, Dr. Beckett?"

"Did anything -- strange -- happen here, during my last leap?"

"I have nothing in my files which indicates that anything more strange than usual occurred."

"Nothing involving Al and the -- guest -- in the waiting room?"

"I recorded nothing out of the ordinary, Doctor."

Sam let out his breath, feeling absurdly relieved. He was letting his imagination run away with him. "Do you know where Al is, Ziggy?"

"Somewhere on the planet Earth," the voice answered laconically.

"Specifically," Sam said impatiently, "like an address, Ziggy."

"I only know he left the complex some time ago. But I can find him for you, if it is urgent. You'll have to be in the Imaging Chamber, however."

"The Imaging -- ?" Of course.

The Imaging Chamber worked in real time as well as into the past. When they'd first brought it on line, they had tested it by having Ziggy transmit Al's hologram to Sam while Sam drove around New Mexico. Al had called it the biggest game of hide and seek in the world. And Ziggy had made sure Al always won. But it was expensive, especially when he could use less esoteric means to find Al. But it would save time. And what good was having your own project if you couldn't abuse your power, a little, from time to time? And, the final selling point, Al couldn't walk away from a hologram. Sam would just recenter if he tried.

"Okay, Ziggy. Fire up the chamber and I'll be there in two minutes. Uh, the party's still on the third floor, isn't it?"  
"For the moment. The control room is empty," Ziggy added, helpfully answering the intent of Sam's question.  
"Good. We won't need backup." Or witnesses.

 

It was dark. Sam blinked and waited for his eyes to adjust. Briefly, he wondered if the lights in the Imaging Chamber had malfunctioned, and then he realized he could see shapes around him. He was looking at a room with furniture, not the empty space of the Chamber.

His image had been projected somewhere outside of the Project but he couldn't see any sign of Al. And he didn't recognize what he could see of the night darkened room. He consulted the handlink he carried, pushing buttons furiously.

"Oh, great, Ziggy," he muttered, reading the message off the device. "I know I'm in a house. Now tell me where the house is, and where is Al?"

The answer came and he smacked the side of the handlink with his palm, a' la Al. "Two miles east of Alamogordo and two meters straight up?" Sam looked at the ceiling and surmised a second story above him. "Cute, Ziggy."  
Sam pushed more buttons and the room around him was replaced by an upstairs hall. There was a light showing under the closed door directly in front of him. He took a deep breath, trying to slow his suddenly pounding heart, and stepped through the image of the door and into a bedroom.

At first he didn't fully understand what he was seeing. His brain simply refused to process all the information his eyes were sending to it. He saw the two bodies on the bed, moving together in an ages-old rhythm, and it certainly registered that the man was Al Calavicci. But it was what Al was doing -- besides screwing the moaning woman underneath him -- that Sam refused to believe, in spite of his earlier, vague premonitions.  
He must have made a sound, a gasp, or even said something. Whatever it was, Al heard it. And lifted his face from the woman's throat to turn and stare at Sam. With extended fangs and blazing brownish golden eyes, and blood on his lips. A vampire.

"Sam!"

The creature -- Al -- pulled himself from the woman's body, ignoring her attempts to cling to him, and rose from the bed toward Sam.

"No!" Sam moaned. "God, no!" A nightmare, he thought, it had to be a nightmare. It couldn't possibly be real. He backed away, through the wall, trying to find the combination of buttons on the handlink that would take him away from there -- and heard Al's voice.

"Sam! Don't go, please!" The voice, at least, was human, and it was Al's voice, begging him. "Sammy, wait!"

Sam hesitated. The bedroom door opened and Al stepped out, a sheet hastily wrapped around his naked body. He was pale and he looked worried but his eyes were their old normal brown again and when he spoke there was no sign of the sharp fangs. In fact, he looked normal. Except for a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. Sam shivered.

"Sam, don't leave like this, please. Let me talk to you first. Will you wait for me, outside?"

Sam couldn't find his voice and Al clutched the sheet tighter, his knuckles going white with the force of his grip. "Please, Sam, for the sake of what we are -- of what we used to be to each other, will you give me a chance to just talk to you?"

Sam nodded, and Al relaxed a little.

"I'll be out in just a few minutes. There's a porch on the back side of the house. I'll meet you there."

Al started back toward the door and Sam remembered the woman on the other side.

"What about her? Al, you won't..." he trailed off, unable to put words to his fear.

"She'll be fine, Sam. She'll wake up tomorrow and she won't remember anything except the sex." He smiled wryly, sadly, at Sam. "I'm only a lady killer in the figurative sense of the word."

When Al came out five minutes later, Sam was sitting cross legged on the Imaging Chamber floor. He appeared to Al to be sitting on the rough floorboards of the open porch, near the edge where a shaft of moonlight haloed down around him. His eyes were turned down to the handlink he held in his lap.

Al settled a few feet from him, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the floor, heedless of the damage the splinters and dust were inflicting on his trousers. He kept silent, watching Sam until the other man raised his head and looked at him. Al winced at the misery in the hazel eyes.

"So, " Sam said hoarsely. "You're really a --" He couldn't finish and Al said it for him.

"A vampire. Yeah. Guess it's my turn to say I told you so."

Sam had been reviewing a few things from his last leap in his mind while he waited for Al. Leaping into a coffin that was apparently the leapee's bed. The Blood Moon ceremony. Al's insistence that he'd leaped into a vampire, and his own smug, exasperated denial of the possibility that such creatures even existed. And not being able to see his host's reflection in a silver serving tray moments before he'd leaped out.

"Corrington did this to you, in the Waiting Room?"

"He started it there. It took a while before it finished, after you leaped out."

"But how? Why didn't anybody know? The Waiting Room is monitored."

Al shrugged. "I'm a little fuzzy on the details. And the parts I do remember, I'd just as soon not go into. It happened; the mechanics aren't important."

"It's my fault." Sam's face twisted with anger and pain. "I'm sorry, Al."

Al shook his head. "Stuff happens. You're not to blame, Sam."

"The hell I'm not." Sam's tone was bitter. "I'm the one who leaped before we had a working retrieval program. I'm the one who leaped into Nigel Corrington and put him in the Waiting room where he could get to you. And I'm the one," he said savagely, "who made fun of you during that leap. If I had trusted your judgement, maybe we could have figured out a way to protect you. No wonder you were avoiding me after the retrieval. I'm surprised you can stand to even look at me."

"That's quite a diatribe," Al looked at him levelly. "If you want a pity party, go somewhere else. You did what you had to do when you leaped; you followed your nature and your dream. You helped a lot of people, Sam. Made the world a better place. Maybe we made a few mistakes along the way, but you always did your best, and I was proud to be there with you.

"As for this -- " Al gestured at himself. "You didn't choose to leap into a vampire or to put me in danger. So it's not your fault. In fact, I think maybe it was fated."

Sam looked askance at him and shook his head. "You're saying that God, or Time, or Fate or Whoever decided to make you a vampire? Why, for God'd sake?"

Because it brought you home, Sam." Al smiled at him, his voice gentle and somewhat self-mocking in tone. "I admit, it's an kind of an ironic way to answer a guy's prayers, but at this stage of the game I'm past looking a gift horse in the mouth."

"What are you talking about?" Sam was confused and a part of him still wanted to believe ths was all a dream and he would wake up soon. He would even settle for waking up in a leap if it meant the resigned horror he could see in the back of Al's eyes would be gone. If he was in a leap...

"The retrievel program, Sam" Al's voice called his attention from his scattered thoughts. "Didn't you wonder how I fixed it?"

"I -- " Sam pulled his attention back to the conversation. "I had the impression that it was a team effort." His brow wrinkled. "Donna told me that everybody had been working on it, every spare minute, she said."

"Well, that's true. But nobody would have ever figured it out, except maybe as a fluke. Or you might have been able to do it, if you're brain hadn't of been swiss-cheesed while you were leaping. Not any other mortal, though."  
Al looked at him, his eyes glowing softly in their depths in an unearthly way that made Sam vaguely uneasy. "I rewrote the program after I changed, Sam. It had a basic flaw in the perception of time and how it reacts to movement through it. I could find that flaw and fix it because vampires can step outside of time for short periods. We can track the ripples we make when we do that. It's kinda like watching the wind. You can't see the actual breeze but you can feel it and you can see the debris it pushes along and drags in it's wake." He squinted at Sam, noting the expression on his face. "I'm spooking you out. Sorry, Sammy."

"No, It's okay." Sam cleared his throat and looked away. The reality was beginning to sink in. Al was a vampire. He wasn't human. But he was still Sam's friend. He was still Al. Wasn't he? "It's just -- You just sounded so different for a moment. I guess it's all too new for me."

"Well, I'm not exactly used to it, either. But it's who I am now, Sam." Al shifted on the floor boards. "That's why I'm going to leave the project, and New Mexico."

Sam's head whipped around and Al's eyes met his straight on. "I can't be around you like this, Sam. It's too dangerous."

"I won't tell anybody, Al" Sam promised swiftly. "You don't have to leave."

"It's not me I'm worried about. I know you won't go around talking about finding a vampire in New Mexico. It's you I'm concerned about, Sam, your--"

"Listen, Al," Sam interrupted, not caring about Al's explanation of why he should leave. All he wanted was a way to convince Al he could stay, and his vague thoughts of moments before had finally coalesced into a solution to the basic problem. "I can change it! I don't know why I didn't think of it right away. Probably the shock." Sam stood up and Al copied the movement, watching Sam's growing excitement uneasily.

"I can leap back and make sure Corrington doesn't touch you. I can replace you or -- "

"Sam, stop!" Al stepped close to Sam's image, puting his face close to the scientist's. "You are not going to leap anywhere."

"But I can -- "

"No! You can't fix it, Sam. In the first place, replacing me while I'm supposed to be helping you with a leap would be tricky in itself. You'd be swiss-cheesed, and that might mess up the original leap and the girl could die. Or Corrington could get to you and we'd both be in the same fix. And," he continued over the objections Sam was trying to make, "secondly, if you change what happened to me, you won't come home. Maybe never. I told you that the only reason the retrieval program got fixed was because I got a new perspective on Time, after I became a vampire."

"Ziggy remembers the alternate histories. She could hold onto the retrieval program. It wouldn't necessarily be lost, if I changed history." Sam was more subdued, but still looking stubbornly determined. "And if I did get trapped again, it would be worth it, if it freed you."

"Not to me, it wouldn't. The odds are too low that we would be able to hang onto the retrevial program. Don't you think I thought about all of this? I knew what you'd want to do, if you ever found out about me. And I'm telling you, you're not going to leap. Not for this. Not for me."

"But -- "

"No, Sam." Al had backed Sam's image almost into the wall. Now he eased off and leaned against one of the posts that supported the porch, looking out over the moonlit desert. "Sam, it wasn't easy for me to accept what happened, what I was becoming. When I started feeling the change, I left the project and I went out into the desert. I figured I would walk so far out, I wouldn't have a chance of finding shelter when the sun rose. I thought I could go out in a blaze of glory and a pile of ashes. I figured that was better than being a vampire."

"You were going to kill yourself," Sam whispered, appalled, and yet he could understand the reaction from Al's point of view.

"Well I was kinda dead already. Or at least not exactly living. But that was the general idea."

"What changed your mind?" Sam asked. Al turned around to look at him and the physicist was surprised to see that he looked faintly amused.

"You did." Al grinned."Actually, my subconscious mingled with some of your mesons and neurons left over from the simo-leap and produced a vision of you. You said I was the only one who could bring you back, that I'd been given a gift. I didn't understand it until later, but it was true."

"Some gift," Sam muttered.

"No, it really was. I used my new perceptions of Time to bring you home, and that was a really precious gift, Sam. It made everything worthwhile."

Al watched tears form in Sam's eyes, and he lifted a hand to 'touch' the moisture as it spilled over. "I'm not saying it wasn't a struggle to overcome my first reaction. I still feel like my soul has been sucked right out of me, and maybe I always will. But it was an honorable sacrifice, for somebody who deserved it. Somebody I love more than my own life, Sam. Please don't spit on that offering. Just accept it. I want you to have your life back, Sam."

Sam wiped his face, struggling to breathe past the constriction in his chest. What could he say to that, to knowing he meant that much to Al?

"You're not leaving me much choice, are you?" He looked at Al, then looked away. "It just feels selfish, Al. It feels wrong to take so much from you when all of this is my fault, anyway."

"Hey, we're not talking blame, Sam. I told you, stuff happens." Al narrowed his eyes, focusing on Sam's face as it turned back toward him. "Listen, selfish would be jumping back into the accelerator to fix things, just so you could feel better. And wrong would be you getting yourself lost in Time again. Beside," he added, suddenly smiling, "You can't leap, anyway. Because, thirdly, I sabotaged the accelerator, right after you came home today."

Sam was sure he couldn't have heard right. "You sabotaged the accelerator?!"

"Well, I needed some kind of insurance you wouldn't go off half-cocked again. Especially if I wasn't around," Al replied calmly. "You can probably fix it, but it'll take a while. And I don't think the committee will just hand you the funds to replace all the parts and programming I whacked."

Sam was speechless with shock, with outrage. Then he had to laugh. It was too much like the Al he had always known. His friend might be a vampire, but he was still his friend. Al Calavicci was still present.

 

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sam asked. They had moved out into the yard. Al was smoking a cigar, and Sam had jammed the handlink into the pocket of his chinos.

"What was I supposed to do? Say 'Welcome home, Sam, and by the way, I'm a vampire now?' Maybe show a little fang for the whole crowd at the project?"

"You weren't planning on ever telling me, were you?" Sam's tone was accusing.

"Believe it or not, I hadn't really thought it all out." Al flicked away some ashes. "I was kinda playing it by ear, concentrating on getting you back first. But no, I wasn't really planning on telling you. I had a sort of vague idea that I'd hang around a while, and then ease out of your life when things had settled down for you. A few months, maybe even a year from now." Al inspected the tip of his cigar and then met Sam's eyes. "I decided tonight that I'd have to leave sooner than I'd figured."

"Well, thank goodness it won't come to that now. Since I know the truth, there's no reason for you to leave."

Al kept quiet, turning his gaze to the unremarkable scenery. Sam began to have a bad feeling. "Al?"

"Sam, I still have to go." Al turned back and there was sadness in his eyes, but firm determination as well. "I can't stay around you. It's too dangerous. For you," he added, and watched the hazel eyes darken to flat brown.

"You would never hurt me," Sam stated with conviction.

"You don't know that."

"I know you. And you said you don't kill."

"And you believed me, just like that?" Al shook his head. "You always were too naive." He gestured toward the house and the upstairs room where Sam had found him. "How do you know that I didn't finish her off after you left, Sam? How you know that I didn't drain every drop of her blood and leave a husked out shell in that bed?"  
"Because I know you," Sam repeated simply. Al shook his head again.

"You know who I used to be. I'm not that man anymore, Sam. I'm not your old pal, Al."

Al suddenly drew his lips back in a feral smile. Long Sharp canines descended, fangs that glistened in the moonlight. Al's eyes were glowing and he advanced on Sam's image so quickly the movement wasn't even a blur in the physicist's sight. Al was simply three feet nearer him in less time than it took Sam to blink. Sam stepped back instinctively, then made himself hold his ground.

"This is who I am, Sam." Al's voice was a low hiss, menacing and unearthly. Nonhuman. "I am a vampire; not a man, not a human, not your friend. I am a creature who feeds on blood. Human blood. Any human's blood," he emphasized. "I'd even take yours. Don't fool yourself into thinking you have any immunity from what I am. Just be smart and let me go out of your life. But most of all, see me for what I am."

"I know what you are." Sam kept his voice steady and he didn't back away from the demonic mask covering his best friend's face. "And I know who you are. I trust you, Al. I always have and I always will."

"I don't trust myself." Al pulled away, letting his features go back to normal, quieting the feral nature he'd called out. He stepped back from Sam and folded his arms over his chest. "Tell me something, Sam. In my office tonight, when you hugged me, what did you think happened? Why'd you think I left so fast?"

"I, uh..." Sam blushed, then he met Al's eyes defiantly. "I figured it had something to do with the hard-on you had pushed up against me. I thought you were upset, embarrassed, maybe scared, cause I found out you wanted me."  
Al didn't look away. "That's why you came lookin for me, right? To get the whole thing resolved, out in the open, like you always like to do with stuff?"

I wanted to tell you that it didn't bother me, knowing how you felt." Sam's head dipped a moment, then came back up, his expression still defiant, even proud, having reached the last level of honesty within himself. "I wanted to tell you that I understood. Because I've felt the same way about you. I do feel that way about you."

It was Al's turn to look away, but when he looked back there was no softening of his set face. "If you had just turned me on sexually, I wouldn't have left, Sam. I would have passed it off with a joke, or tried to seduce you. You wouldn't be my first man, by the way." Al cocked his head, taking in the surprise on Sam's face. "You remember my lips touching your neck, Sam?"

Sam felt the shock hit him. He hadn't realized the significance until that moment.

Al nodded, watching Sam's face intently. "I see that you do remember. I wanted your blood, Sam. It's been a long day, I was hungry. And I wanted all of you. Your blood, your body, your spirit." Al's voice was rough. He looked Sam up and down with a deliberately provocative stare. He could see Sam shiver under that look. "I wanted to taste you, fuck you, drown in your essence. I pulled away with that much control left," Al said, displaying a thumb and forefinger nearly touching. "The next time, I might not have the strength to walk away."

"Maybe I wouldn't want you to walk away," Sam replied faintly.

It was Al's turn to be shocked. "You don't know what you're saying," he told Sam firmly. "I'm not going to pull you into this perversity. And before you go all PC on me, having gay sex is not what I mean by perversity."

"It's not perverse to want to give the person you love everything they need." Sam swallowed. "I love you, Al. I told you that earlier tonight, and I meant it. Now I'm telling you I'm in love with you. I want to be with you. I want to give you everything I can."

"Just like that, all of a sudden, you're in love with me?" Al's tone was sarcastically chiding, obviously believing Sam was saying whatever he thought Al needed to hear. "Sam -- "

"It's not all of a sudden! I think I've felt it for a long time but I was afraid to acknowledge it. Maybe because I was scared you'd run from it, or I just wasn't ready for it myself. Or maybe it's a feeling that's so -- so close to me, Al, so much a part of me, and of us, of you and me, that I just couldn't see it for what it was." Sam was sounding frustrated at his inability to explain with words something that, once recognized felt as natural and as necessary as breathing. Who cared about the how and the why, as long as it continued? "But I know now," he went on, "and I'm not going to walk away from it."

"What about Donna, Sam ?" Al was looking at him somberly, speaking with the air of trying to make him see sense. "She's your wife, you're supposed to be in love with her. Are you just gonna walk away from her, after you changed history to get her back?"

Sam felt a jolt of guilt and shame. Al could see it in his face, a shadow falling across his expressive features. But then his jaw firmed, eyes clearing to meet Al's straight on.

"I loved Donna. And when I saw her again in that leap into her college professor, I remembered loving her and how it felt to lose her. But I didn't rememer that I'd gotten over her. That she wasn't the most important, most loved, person in my life anymore."

Sam shook his head, closing his eyes. "I really screwed up, Al. Not in reuniting Donna with her father in that leap, but I never should have married her." He opened his eyes, meeting Al's gaze again. "My memories from this timeline are still fuzzy, but I think I know now that I was so close to falling in love with you, even back then -- I couldn't handle it. I was afraid I'd lose your friendship if you found out. So I fell for Donna instead." Sam sighed. "I did love her. Part of me will always love her, but she's never been the one I really needed."

Sam took a step nearer Al's image. "Donna has always resented my closeness with you, the way you and I just fall so easily into our own world, the connection that we've always had. I think it's because she could sense that you come first with me,that if I ever had to chose between you, I'd chose you. She was right.

"Sam." Al was shaking his head, eyes dropping away from Sam's face.

"No, Al, you can't talk me out of this. It's time to put right what I made wrong. I'm in love with you, not Donna. On some level she knows that and it's eating away at her. It's better for us all if the truth comes out now."

Sam waited until Al looked at him again. "I'm in love with you," he repeated when he could hold Al's eyes with his again. "And I think you're in love with me, too. If you weren't," he added, "you wouldn't have left your office tonight when you were so close to taking what you wanted. You wouldn't have put my welfare above your needs."

"Ah, Sam." Al broke their eye contact and dropped his cigar stub to the ground, grinding it into the dirt with the toe of his shoe. He looked up at the sky, noting the position of the moon and gauging how much time was left before sunrise while Sam watched him anxiously. Finally, Al turned back to him and lifted one hand to cup the air that held the image of Sam's face. "I dreamed about you while you were leaping. The last couple of years, I dreamed about being able to touch you, kiss you. Make love to you." He let his hand drop. "Some dreams aren't meant to come true, Sam. And sometimes, love just isn't enough," He finished gently.

"I don't believe that," Sam said stubbornly. "You said you thought it was fated that you were able to bring me home. Why isn't it meant to be that we wind up together? If we both want it -- "

"I don't want you, Sam." Al's voice was rough and hard. "Not like this. Not when being with me will put your life, your soul on the line."

"What I do with my life is my decision," Sam replied heatedly, a bit desperately.

"And what I do with mine is up to me." Al gave Sam a somewhat strange, sweet smile. "I do love you, Sam. Remember that, and maybe someday you can forgive me."

Sam's eyes were locked onto Al's face. One moment Al was there, looking back, brown eyes deep and nearly black in the moonlight, the next moment he was simply gone. And in the next instant, Sam was staring at the empty, white walls of the Imaging Chamber.

"Ziggy, center me on Al!" Sam said frantically. Nothing happened, he was still standing in the empty IC. He pulled the handlink from his pocket, repeating the instruction on the mini-keypad. "Now, Ziggy," he ordered.

Nothing changed except the readout on the handlink. "What do you mean, You can't lock onto his brain waves? Try harder!"

Sam slapped the handlink, making it squeal. There was the barest flicker of some new scene around Sam, then it was gone. "Ziggy?"

Sam opened the IC door and ran into the control room. "Ziggy, what happened?"

"Admiral Calavicci's brain waves have vanished. I am unable to get a lock on him."

Sam felt a surge of panic, but he took some deep breaths and tried to think it through. Al had said that vampires were able to step outside of time for short periods. If he was doing that, it was possible his brain waves were altered by whatever vampiric process he was using. Or that the very act of stepping outside of time masked his brain waves from Ziggy. Either way, Al probably knew it and was using it to hide from Sam. But he couldn't expect to keep it up forever, so what was his ultimate goal?

'I'm not gonna pull you into this perversity,' he'd said. And, 'I thought I'd go out in a blaze of Glory and a pile of ashes.' And finally, he'd said 'maybe someday you can forgive me.'

"Oh, God." Sam whispered. He suddenly knew Al's goal, and the knowledge terrified him. "Ziggy, how long until sunrise?"

"One hour, thiry-two minutes."

Ninety-two minutes. And an entire desert to search. And he'd have to stop Al physically; being a hologram wouldn't do the trick.

"Ziggy, can you bring the accelerator online? Prepare it for a leap?" Maybe Al had been bluffing with reason number 3. There was a pause of about ten seconds which seemed more like five minutes.

"I am sorry, Dr. Beckett." Ziggy's voice was slightly confused and uncharacteristically apologetic. " I seem to be missing the program for that function."

No, Al hadn't bluffed, he'd been more than thorough. "Never mind. Just keep trying to find Al. If you get any signal from his brain waves at all, try to extrapolate a direction of travel for him. If we can figure out where he's heading, maybe I can get there by the time he does."

Sam spent a tense fifteen minutes pacing in the control room before Ziggy spoke again. "Dr. Beckett, I have been getting brief contact with Admiral Calavicci's brain waves at fairly regular intervals, from different locations. I believe I can now project his destination with an eighty-five point two percent accuracy."

"Where?" Sam held his breath.

"His mountain cabin. And it's interesting that you should have inquired as to the time of the surise. I recall once hearing the admiral say that the view of the sunrise from the cabin is spectacular."

"Let's hope that Al doesn't see it this time." Sam slapped his hand on the console. "Ziggy, no one is to know anything about my activities tonight, or about Al's. It's top secret, understand? And if anyone asks, you don't know where either of us are."

Sam was out the door before Ziggy could acknowledge his orders.

Donna caught him at the elevators. She looked red-eyed and upset."

"Sam, we need to talk."

"Donna, I can't. I have to go somewhere. It's really urgent."

"Where?" She clutched his sleeve. "It's Al, isn't it? Sam, please, don't go to him tonight. Please, stay here. We need to talk out our problems. Please, Sam, don't go!"

"Donna." Though his nerves were jumping with the urgency to get going, he only gently pried her hand away. "We will talk, I promise, just not now."

He stepped quickly into the elevator and let the doors close in her face. He could hear her voice caling to him after the lift had begun to rise, but he couldn't think about his marriage or Donna's feelings at that moment. He could only think of Al, and the clock in his head, ticking off the minutes to sunrise.

Sam had been to Al's mountain cabin before his first leap. It was about an hour away, and by the time he'd liberated a car frome the project's motor pool, an hour was almost exactly how long he had before the sun was due to rise. Once on the highway, he floored the gas pedal and kept it there.

There was no traffic. Sam was alone with the winding ribbon of road and his thoughts, which he tried to keep blank. Imagination can be a curse, however, and Sam kept picturing himself arriving moments too late, finding a heap of charred flesh and bone crumbling to dust on Al's rock terrace where the view of the rising sun was so spectacular.

He kept remembering, too, everything that he and Al had been through together. He remembered his leap into Al as a young navy pilot. For a few hours during that leap a change in history had erased Al Calavicci from Sam's life, and almost from his memory. But he'd fought to hold onto Al's name and image and all that he knew about him. He'd been terrified at the thought of losing Al forever, and he'd been unable to bear the thought of his past or his future without the man's unique devotion and warmth, his particular brand of wisdom and his rock solid friendship.They had managed to mend history on that leap, in fact leaving things better than they had been originally. But here was that same terror of losing Al forever back again, sharper and colder than before.

The eastern sky was glowing pink and gold, when he took the last section of winding road to Al's dirt driveway. He was afraid Al would hear the car and leave, or merely hide in the woods until it was too late, so he left the car at the bottom of the driveway. He ran on the hard-packed dirt and gravel, racing the sun coming up over his shoulder.

The sunlight was hitting him as he rounded the last gentle curve, praying that Ziggy hadn't miscalculated Al's destination. And that Al wouldn't see or hear him in time to pull another disappearing act. Then he heard the cries, strangled moans of agony.

"Al!"

Al was kneeling on the terrace, smoke rising from him, his exposed face and hands scorching in the still weak light of the new sun. Sam made a diving tackle, smothering Al's smaller body under his, protecting him as best he could from the sun. Sam shoved them both toward the door and butted it open with his shoulder, thanking God it wasn't locked. He scooped Al up and moved inside in one almost smooth motion.

He carried Al through the cabin, adrenline making his weight light. He headed for the bedroom that was on the far western side of the cabin, as far away from the direct sunlight as he could get. He dumped Al gently onto the floor and secured the door behind them, locking it and switching on the overhead light at the same time. He checked the two windows, making sure the heavy wooden shutters were closed and locked, and pulled the curtains over the windows as well. The outside light blocked as well as he could manage, Sam took a breath before turning back to Al.

Al had crawled to the door and was scrabbling for the lock with one burned hand. Sam made another dive from across the room and caught Al's wrist. Al hissed at him, eyes mad with pain and red as blood. Taking another look, Sam realized it was blood he was seeing, from the cracked skin around his eyes. Probably even his eyes were burned, Sam thought, blinding him. His face and hands were raw, blistered and oozing blood and clear fluid.

"God, Al!"

"Let me go, Sam. Let me finish it before I destroy your life." Al was struggling, hampered by the pain and blindness, but with his vampiric strength, even wounded as he was, he could still overcome Sam if he tried hard enough.

"No!" Sam wrestled his way on top of Al, afraid to touch his blistered, cracked skin, more afraid to let go. "If you die, I swear to God, I'll fix the accelerator and leap back to prevent all this. Even if it takes the rest of my life, Al. Whatever I have to do. I'll get the funds and I'll rebuild the whole thing from the ground up, if I have to, to get you back. I'm not going to lose you like this!"

"I want to die, Sam. You hear me? It's what I want!" Al growled the words out. "It's my choice, dammit! You can't stop me."

"Then I'll die with you." Sam let Al go and sat back, watching him begin to crawl toward the door again. "You've still got that gun you keep up here for snakes, haven't you Al? If you don't, I'm sure there are knives. Or, I know you have kerosene stored up here, I could immolate myself like you're trying to do. We can go out the same way, even at the same time. What do you think?"

Al stopped crawling. "You're bluffing," he said hoarsely.

"Am I?" Sam asked softly. "Could you watch me die and just go on living, Al? Even if it was what I wanted? Especially if it was because of you?"

Silence for several moments. Sam watched Al's motionless body and tried not to be nauseous from the smell of burned flesh in the closed room. Finally, Al turned over with an effort, moving from his chest to his back. "All right. You win, Sam. I won't suicide. But I want you to leave, right now."

"No." Sam moved the couple of feet to Al's side. "I'm not leaving you like this. You need medical attention."

"I'll heal as long as I stay out of the sun. I don't need a doctor."

"But you're hurting."

"It's not the first time. Get out of here, Sam."

Sam was quiet a moment, watching Al's burned hands clench into fists, recognizing the agony they were trying to hold inside the trembling frame. He made a decision, the only one he could make.

"Fresh blood would help you heal faster, wouldn't it?"

Al shivered. "Not your blood. I won't do that, Sam."

"Why not, if you need it? I'd give my life for you, Al. What's a little blood?" Sam slid closer, and Al moved painfully away, keeping some distance between them.

"Listen to me." Al's eyes were closed, even with them open he couldn't see, but with his enhanced senses, he could feel Sam's physical nearness keenly. He could smell him, could hear his heart beat. Sam had interrupted his earlier meal and he had used up a lot of his reserves on the trip to the cabin. He needed blood to soothe the terrible pain and heal the burns inflicted by the sun. Having Sam so close was testing his control severely. It was all he could do to hold himself back from simply taking what he needed. But it was more than Sam's blood he desired. It was a difficult to talk, but he had to explain.

"When I said earlier that I wanted to drown in your essence, it wasn't just some poetic phrase, Sam." Al swallowed. "You're not like the strangers I've taken from since I changed. Whether it's because of the neural link from the project, or everything we've been through together, or just because I love you, I want you too much. So much it scares me. If I think of you giving me your blood -- " Al had to pause as the image of Sam baring his throat to him popped into his mind, threatening to trigger his most primitive instincts. "It makes me want to own you. Possess you," he ground out, feeling his fangs descend. "I'm afraid, if I ever taste you, I won't be able to stop."  
Al swallowed again, convulsively, and opened wide, unseeing eyes in Sam's direction. "I could kill you without meaning to. Or make you like me."

It was Sam's turn for silence. He turned the situation over in his mind, considering carefully. He believed Al's fears were legitimate, at least in Al's mind. But the bottom line was, Al was in pain and Sam's blood could heal him. And he trusted Al, more, it seemed, than Al trusted himself. Besides, the idea of Al wanting him that much was not unpleasant.

"I'm not going to just leave you hurting like this," he said firmly. "I could open a vein and bleed into a glass for you, I suppose. But that seems a little messy when we could just do it the old fashioned way." Sam moved closer, sitting beside Al and facing him. He stopped Al's attempt to shift away again with a brief touch to his chest.  
"I want us to be together, Al. I want, I need you in my life. So, finding out just how close we can be is something that we'll have to settle, sooner or later. I say we do it now. If you kill me," He said flatly, "then you can finish what you started out there, if that's what you want. If I wind up like you..." he paused, then finished resolutely. "I'll deal with it. It's only losing you that I can't handle."

Al wavered, pain and need warring against his caution and concern for Sam. "I don't want to hurt you, Sam."

"Then let me help you,"Sam pleaded. "If you love me, let me give you what you need." His voice softened, a wisp of seduction in his tone. "Whatever you need, Al."

Al hesitated but he knew he couldn't go on fighting himself and Sam, and he knew Sam wouldn't take no for an answer this time. When had he ever?

"You're a ruthless bastard, Sam Beckett." Al pushed himself into a sitting position, clenching his teeth to keep in a cry of pain. He steadied himself and then reached out blndly, finding Sam's hand with uncanny acuracy. He curled his burned fingers around Sam's. "God help us both," he whispered.

"You won't hurt me, Al."

In spite of his belief in those words, Sam's voice shook slightly. From nerves, he told himself firmly, or maybe fear of the unknown. He could't imagine what it would be like, having Al drink his blood. But he was not afraid of Al himself.

Sam swallowed. "Do you need my throat or...?"

"Your wrist will do." Al drew the hand he held toward his mouth. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too," Sam replied, never more certain of that fact.

Al's cracked lips touched Sam's palm briefly, and then moved onto his wrist. He sealed his mouth to the warm, tanned skin and in one quick movement, his fangs penetrated Sam's artery.

The pain was twin needle sharp but brief, numbed almost immediately as if anesthetized. But Sam could feel the tight clasp of Al's lips around the punctures and his blood spurting into Al's mouth, driven by his own loudly, pounding heart.

Sam watched the dark head bent over his wrist, and was half surprised to feel no revulsion or any negative emotion. All he could think was that he was sharing life with Al. That Al was drinking his blood rather than getting it through the more normal method of transfusion didn't really matter. But it was infinitely more intimate, and he felt a sweet, aching tenderness blossom in his chest. And another kind of ache, more demanding and less tender, began to blossom in his groin, taking him by surprise.

Al's head moved, shifting so that their gazes could meet without his mouth breaking contact wiht Sam's wrist. With something of a shock, Sam realized that Al's eyes were already healed, bright and moist once more. The skin around them was as smooth as if it had never been burned, and as Sam watched, fascinated, he could actually see more healing taking place on the rest of Al's face and hands. Charred skin was dissolving rapidly into smooth, new growth, looking like time-lapse photography.

His gaze was drawn back to meet Al's eyes and he saw that a soft, red-gold glow was beginning in their brown depths. And he realized that even though Al now seemed to be completely healed, he was displaying no signs of releasing Sam's wrist. In fact, a new look of hunger was showing itself.

Al's mouth moved slightly on Sam's wrist, and his sucking slowed, becoming more sensual. His eyes held Sam's and burned brighter, the soft glow flaring into twin flames.

Sam felt Al's wet-suede tongue push against his suddenly sensitized skin, and he gasped at the hard, sharp arousal that swept through him. It turned his previous desire into raw need. In an instant, his blood was turned to such fire, he wondered it didn't burn Al's mouth. Heat moved through him in slow, pulsing waves from his captured wrist to his chest, to his groin, exactly to the rhythm of Al's sucking mouth on his flesh. The heat pooled low in his belly, his cock swelled more with each wave until it was hard and throbbing within the confinement of his pants.

Sam's body swayed under a litany of desire, spoken in a rasping, familiar voice that was somehow inside his head. He closed his eyes, dizzy and lightheaded, whether with need or blood loss or both, he didn't know. But he could still see Al's burning gaze in the velvet darkness behind his own eyelids.

Sam was burning, too, with lust and love and desires he couldn't even name. Every nerve ending in his body was alive and singing a chorus of sweet, desperate need. He was strung so tight with sex that he could barely breath, let alone think. And he could feel Al's lust as an echo to his own -- or was he echoing Al?

He could feel Al so strongly. He felt surrounded by the essence of the man, almost as if he had leaped into Al's aura again. There was the same richness of character he'd always sensed in Al, the same rock steady strength and generous love. But there was something else, too -- the powerful appetite and ruthless needs of a vampire.  
There was the sheer bliss of tasting life in hot, red surges, and the thrill of power behind the physical lust. There was darkness, too, born out of shame and a loneliness so cold and bitter that Sam felt it all the way down to his soul. His response was instinctive and deep. He reached out to Al with love and ready comfort and his own soothing warmth.

Surprise flashed back to him, astonishment that turned to hungry pleasure and he felt Al even more keenly. The very centers of their beings shifted toward each other, and when they met, Sam felt his body explode with Al's in a moment of soul piercing togetherness.

It was a keen intimacy, beyond anything Sam had ever imagined possible. It was the touching of two souls claiming each other through a bond formed of mutual need and sacrifice and love. And Sam knew, beyond any doubt, exactly what Al Calavicci meant to him. More than the project, more than Elk Ridge, more than his family or Donna, Al meant home to him. And safety and love. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to be with Al forever.

But their perfect togetherness was already slipping away with their bodies' fading climaxes as Al's mouth released Sam's wrist. Dimly, Sam felt his body being lowered to his back on the carpeted floor. Heavy sadness was seeping in as bliss drained away, and Sam felt it like mourning. He felt cold with the separation and rebellion stirred. He clutched tightly at Al with numb hands. "Don't let me go," he pleaded.

"Sam..."

There was pain and heavy control in Al's gravel voice and Sam forced his eyes to open to focus on the face above him. It was flushed and tormented with doubt and raw longing. The eyes that looked into his were still burning and the overhead light glinted on the fangs that were still extended.

"Please," Sam said, caught in his own longing, not thinking of the reason for Al's pain filled resolve to let go.

Al refused to yield to Sam's touch, keeping his hands clenched into fists, his arms rigid under Sam's gripping fingers.

"Sam, if I don't let you go, right now, I never will." Al looked down with his blazing eyes."Do you understand what that means? Is that what you want?"

Their gazes met and Sam saw the struggle for control twisting Al's face. Sam's breath caught in his throat and Time seemed to stop as everything became electrifyingly clear to him. Al could give them forever. They could have the world and centuries of time to share as near eternal partners, friends, lovers. Soulmates. Neither of them would ever have to be alone again.

Al could change him and Time would never again be their enemy. Death would not part them as it had parted Sam from his father, and tried to take his brother. As it would one day take Tom again, and his mother and sister.  
Sam could see his family so clearly in his mind, as he'd not yet seen them since his return from leaping. He hadn't even talked with any of them yet. How could he go to them, spend time with them, as a vampire? And the project, the work he still had to do, could he do it as a vampire?

Could he even stand to exist as a vampire? Even to share Al's life?

'If I wind up like you,' he'd said, 'I'll deal with it.' But facing that very prospect, he knew he couldn't handle it, not yet. It was too much too soon. Maybe he'd never be able to handle it.

Sam drew in a long breath and Al read his answer in his eyes before Sam closed them and turned his head away. He let his hands drop away from Al's arms, letting them float limply to the floor. "I'm sorry," he whispered. I can't.."

"I know," Al said. He moved away and Sam shivered, throwing an arm over his face to block out the overhead lights. He felt empty and tired and vaguely hungover. Drums were beating in his temples, a steady, harsh pounding. He wanted to curl into a ball and sleep for a thousand years.

At least five minutes passed in absolute silence as neither man moved. Then Al's voice broke the quiet.  
"Sam, are you okay?" He sounded more like himself, his voice no longer quite so strained.

Sam lowered his arm to look at Al finding him sitting several feet away on the floor with his arms hugging his raised knees. He looked every bit as alone and miserable as Sam felt. But his eyes were their natural brown and shadowed by totally human pain and guilt. There was no sign of the terrible burns, the healed skin only looked fresh and tender.

"I'm okay." Sam sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, wincing at the soreness in his wounded wrist. He looked at it and found two perfectly round, red spots, the holes already looked like they were closing over. He'd expected something more exotic and raw, not something that looking like he'd simply been jabbed with a rather large needle. He suspected that in a few hours the tiny wounds would look no worse than insect bites. He looked back toward Al. "Are you all right?

"Yeah, I'm just peachy," Al answered bitterly.

"Al." Reproach in his his tone, Sam heaved himself upright. But whatever he was going to say was pushed aside as the room spun around him. "Oh, boy." He swayed, and Al was suddenly kneeling beside him, steadying him.  
"Sam?"

"I'm fine. Just a little dizzy." Sam took a couple of deep breaths, keeping his eyes closed while Al watched him worriedly.

"You're awfully pale, Sam. Not exactly colorless, but close."

"I'm not surprised." Sam felt inexpressibly weary. "I'll be fine after I rest and get something to eat."

"I took a lot of blood," Al said roughly. "You may need a transfusion, just to be safe."

"I don't think so," Sam opened his eyes and met Al's evenly. "I have heard of people donating as much as three units of blood, in an emergency situation. I don't think you took that much."

"God, I hate this!" Al ran a hand over his face and abruptly sat back. He stood up and turned away.

"Where are you going?" Sam demanded, reading determination in Al's body language.

"To the phone by the bed, to call the project and get a medical team up here."

"You can't do that! They'll find out about you." Sam started to stand up too fast and almost fainted. Al grabbed him and eased him back down.

"Easy, Sam." Al watched Sam recover, crouching beside him and leaving a hand on his shoulder. Finding it safe to touch, now that worry had driven the last of his need from him. "Listen, anything is better than you dying from shock from blood loss."

"I'm not dying," Sam protested, but Al was already up and heading for the phone again. He picked up the receiver and muttered a curse when he put it to his ear. "Damn thing's dead", he said and shook the instrument in frustration. "The lines up here are always going out of order. And my cell phone is in my car. Damnit!"

"Al, I'm not going to die," Sam said as firmly as he could. He actually felt a little like death warmed over, but it was more from a culmination of everything that had happened in the last several hours than just the loss of blood. He started again to try to push himself up and Al was immediately beside him, holding him down.

"Sam, neither of us knows exactly how much blood I drained from you, but I know I've never taken that much from anybody before. You need to see a doctor."

"I am a doctor." Sam pulled back from Al's hands and proceeded to give himself an examination. He looked at his nails, noting the color (pink) of the nailbeds, and that the color came back quickly when he applied and released pressure on the nails. He noted that his hands and feet were warm. He took his own pulse, counting solemnly, and reviewed how he actually felt, physically. Al watched him, keeping quiet beside him on the floor.

When he'd checked himself over as well as he could, Sam met Al's eyes seriously. "I don't think you took too much blood, Al, as far as I can tell. I'm not cold or sweating, my circulation and heart rate are fine, and I don't feel confused or disoriented. No shock, no permanent damage."

"Are you sure, Sam?"

"Yes. I wouldn't lie to you about this, Al. I swear I'll be fine after I get some rest and some food."

Al held his gaze for a couple of moments and then nodded. "Okay. I'm gonna hold you to that." He glanced at the king-sized bed across the room and turned back to Sam. "C'mon, let's get you to bed."

Sam took note of the distance from where he sat to the bed, and looked back at Al. "Bed sounds great," he said. "But, Al, I'm so tired, I don't think I can move."

"That's okay, Sammy. You don't have to do a thing." Al stood up and reached a hand down to Sam. Sam took it and Al pulled him up, bracing him when he was on his feet. Then he swept Sam into his arms and carried him effortlessly to the bed.

Sam nestled into the hold, feeling more than a little bemused by Al's show of vampiric strength. Al set Sam's feet on the floor, holding him upright with one arm around his waist while he turned the covers back with his free hand. Then Sam sat on the bed and let Al pull his shoes off. He was simply too exhausted to bother with removing his clothes. Or so he thought, but Al efficiently and quickly stripped him out of his outer clothing. He hesitated at the underwear, finally leaving the shorts on. Al then pulled the cover up, thinking Sam was already nodding off. But when he started to turn away, Sam grabbed his arm.

"Were are you going?"

"I'm just gonna turn out the lights, Sam. and then I thought I'd pull some blankets out of the closet and make myself a bed on the floor, over there." He gestured toward the other side of the room with his free hand.

Sam's fingers clutched his other arm tighter. "Can't you sleep with me?"

Al gazed down at him, a mixture of emotions crossing his face; caution, love, guilt, and a tender yearning.

"Are you sure you want me to do that, Sam?"

"Yes." Sam's eyes were pleading and he hadn't let go of Al'a arm. "I want you to hold me. If that's okay with you," he added, realizing that Al might have personal reasons for keeping distance between them.

"It's more than okay with me," Al replied gently. He took Sam's hand in his and squeezed it. "If you want me here, here's where I'll be." He brushed the fingertips of his free hand lightly down the side of Sam's face. "I'll be right back," he promised, and the look of relief on the other man's face made Al's throat tighten with emotion.

"Make it fast," Sam said, the words slightly slurring with exhaustion.

When Al had darkened the room, save for a small bedside lamp, he returned and dropped his jacket to the same chair where he'd piled Sam's clothes and kicked off his shoes. He removed his belt, but left the rest of his clothes on.

Al circled to the opposite side of the bed from Sam and climbed in, intending to leave some space between them. Sam, though, had other ideas. He slid closer to Al, spooning against him. Al gave in and put his arms around Sam, holding him close.

Sam snuggled into the embrace and Al stroked his hair and rubbed his back. Al couldn't help marveling at the ease and trust he could feel in the body curled against his. He felt relief, also, that no hunger stirred within him at the contact, no need for anything beyond simple closeness and comfort. And love.

"Feels so good," Sam murmured, "having you hold me." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Al."

"Sorry for what?" Al whispered.

"That I'm not ready to be like you." Sam slid his hands under Al's torso, holding him closer. "I want to be with you, to give you everything you need. But I can't -- "

"I know," Al interrupted. "I understand, Sammy. If our positions were reversed, I couldn't do it either."

"No. You'd do it for me. You always give me everything I need and I never do anything for you."

"That's not true. There's a lot you've done for me, Sam."

"I didn't get Beth back for you." Sam buried his face in Al's shoulder, pain and shame in his voice. "I didn't save you in Vietnam. I leaped before we had a working retrieval program and that trapped you in the Imaging Chamber just like I was trapped in Time. I stole your life, Al. And my only excuse is that I need you so much." Al felt the hot wetness of tears soaking through his shirt. "I love you, Al. More than anything."

Al held Sam tightly, rocking them both slightly. "Listen to me, Sam. I wouldn't have had a life, these last eighteen or so years, without you. I would have drunk myself out of a career and wound up a real low life somewhere. I was so close to giving up on myself and everything else when you came along. You pulled me out of my nosedive and made me a part of the greatest adventure anyone will ever know. You shared your dream with me and helped me find one or two of my own along the way."

Al stroked Sam's back in comforting circles, finding his own comfort in the other man's nearness, his living warmth and steady heartbeat. "The other stuff -- Beth and Nam..." he hesitatied, running one hand up Sam's back to stroke through his hair. " I think maybe some things just aren't meant to be changed, maybe for reasons we don't know. But if either of those things had happened differently, you and I might not have met."

Al laid his cheek against Sam's soft hair, feeling the arms around him holding tightly, as if to a lifeline. "Looking back, Sam, and knowing everything, if I had to choose between getting out of Nam early and keeping Beth or knowing you -- I'd have to choose you."'

Sam was listening intently, soothed by the strong arms around him, by Al's mere presence. "Even knowing where you'd wind up, as a vampire?" he asked.

"Yeah, even that," Al replied quietly. "Because I've never loved anyone the way I love you. You've been a real gift to me, Sam, and if being a vampire is the price for knowing you -- it's better than being human without you. I wouldn't trade the things we've shared for anything."

"If you really mean that," Sam said softly, but firmly, "Then you have to understand why I want to be with you now, no matter what."

"It's the 'no matter what' part that bothers me, Sam. I could have killed you today instead of just draining you of two or three pints of blood. Have you really thought about living with that risk, day in and day out?"

"You could have killed me." Sam raised his head and looked into Al's face. "You could have made me like you. But you didn't, and I didn't stop you Al. You stopped yourself." Sam's eyes were fearless and gentle, full of trust. "You will never hurt me."

"I wish I could be so sure of that." Al's hands carefully cupped Sam's face. "I didn't want to stop, Sam. I wanted to take you, body and soul. To make you all mine, forever."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because -- " Al looked away, then back at Sam his jaw clenched. "Because you've got a beautiful soul Sam. I could feel it. It's all goodness and light and something in me just couldn't bear to turn it cold and dark like mine is now."

Sam turned his head and kissed the palm of Al's hand. "I felt your soul, too, Al. It's full of love and strength and the darkness is just loneliness." He drew one hand from beneath Al and laid it against Al's face. "You're not evil. Look at everything you've done since you changed and since you brought me home. My God, Al, you were ready to die to keep me safe -- from you! Everything you've done has been to sacrifice your needs to give me what you think I should have to be happy, to be safe. But you never asked me what I want, what I need. And that's you, with me."

"It's not that simple," Al told him gently.

"So?" Sam quirked a tired smile at him. "I'm used to complicated, remember?" He stroked Al's face with a hand that trembled with weariness and emotion. "You and I belong together, Al. We're a part of each other, and I'm not sorry for that. Your love has always been a blessing in my life. I believe it still is. Everything else, we can figure out as we go. Whether it's hard or it's easy, it'll still be better if we're together."

"Ahh, Sam." Al cradled Sam's head between his palms, experiencing such a tenderness for the other man. And he felt the connection that was between them, the one that had always been there and had only been strengthened and more firmly anchored by all they had been through. It was true, they were a part of each other and it was too late for either of them to walk away from their entwined fate. "I don't know if we're blessed or cursed," he whispered, practically worshiping Sam with his gentle touch, "but I've got a feeling we're gonna find out, together."

"That's all I ask, Al, That whatever comes, we face it together." Sam brushed a tired and tender kiss on Al's lips and dropped his head to his friend's shoulder. He sighed with exhaustion, and with the simple satisfaction of being held by the person he loved more than anything. Al's very nearness, his hands stroking over him, the solid body beneath him, soothed him, even steadied his body's rhythms as he gave into the weight of the long night's trials. "I love you," he whispered drowsily, just on the edge of sleep.

"Love you," Al murmurred, feeling Sam's arms tighten just the least bit in response before his body relaxed entirely into deep sleep. He rested his cheek against Sam's hair, his arms holding the precious weight securely against him. The inevitable doubts, fears and questions crowded against his conscience, pressing for answers. Resolutely, he ignored them and emptied his mind, refusing to think beyond the moment.

Al savored the warm weight against him and listened to Sam's breathing. He closed his eyes and felt Sam's heartbeat as his own until he fell into the dreamless, black void that was more a temporary cessation of being than mere sleep. For the first time since he'd changed, falling into that empty chasm didn't scare him. He wasn't alone in the dark anymore.

 

When Sam awoke he was alone in the bed, clutching Al's pillow to his chest. He turned from his side to his back, wincing at the pounding in his head. He felt hollowed out, and his mouth was incredibly dry. He rubbed his gritty eyes and pushed himself up a little in the bed.

The bedside lamp was still burning, giving him enough light to see that Al wasn't in the room. The shutters and the curtains over the windows were open, revealing that night had come again, darkness pressing against the panes.Inside the room the atmosphere was still and heavy. And so quiet that Sam might have panicked if he had not been able to somehow feel that Al was near.

Sam saw that his clothes from that morning were neatly folded on the chair beside the bed. Feeling his near naked state, he leaned over and stretched out his hand to snag his shirt. Giving it a sniff, he realized it had been washed. He smiled at the thought of Al doing his laundry. Then, considering that he'd come in his pants that morning, he was grateful that the cabin was equipped with a washer and dryer. He knew Al kept a few clothes there for spur of the moment visits, but he seriously doubted he could have squeezed into any clothes Al owned.  
Sam slipped into his shirt but didn't bother to button it. He pushed the pillows between his back and the headboard and leaned against them.

"Al?" Sam's voice sounded strange to him and he cleared his throat. He called again, louder, and jumped at the quiet answer from the open bedroom door.

"I'm here, Sam."

Al had changed clothes, now wearing a silky looking black shirt and baggy black trousers. He looked completely normal and he was carrying a loaded tray. Covered dishes sat between a small, steaming teapot and a pitcher of orange juice.

Al paused in the doorway for a moment and then moved easily into the room. Watching from the bed, Sam was struck by a certain quality in Al's movements that he'd never noticed before. A litheness and intimation of leashed power that brought to mind a panther's stride, elementally graceful and dangerous, with a sex appeal to match. Sam found himself unable to look away as Al approached the bed.Then Al stepped fully into the range of light cast by the small lamp and tilted an eyebrow at Sam, becoming himself again. Familiar, loved and no less desirable.

Sam blushed in sudden, confused shyness and drew the covers up to his chest in some kind of ridiculous burst of modesty. "Hi," he murmured.

"Hi, yourself, sleepyhead." Al looked away to slide the tray onto the bedside table, shoving the lamp out of the way at the same time. "It took a hell of a long time for you to wake up," he informed Sam. "I was starting to worry. After all, I'm the one who's supposed to sleep like the dead, you know."

Al poured a glass of juice for Sam and their fingers brushed as he handed it over. Sam fought a pleasurable shiver up his spine at he contact. He sipped the juice and mock frowned, trying to control a sudden giddiness."You're not going to start cracking bad vampire jokes, are you?" he demanded.

"No, of course not," Al replied, offended dignity implied in his tone. Then he deadpanned, "Good vampire jokes, maybe." He sat down on the king-sized mattress, facing Sam with one of his knees turned sideways between them on the bed. "I know a great one about a minister, a rabbi and a vampire. They all meet this hooker, see, and -- "

"Al." That certain pronunciation of his name was a protest he recognized from long association. Al shrugged.  
"Okay, I'll save it for later." He watched Sam drink the cold, tart juice, studying his appearance critically. "You're still doing a pretty good imitation of Casper. How do you feel?"

Sam looked at him over the rim of his glass, considering how much he could blur the truth and get away with it. Al's expression told him it would not be a lot. "I'm a little shaky," he admitted. "And I've got a headache. Probably low blood sugar."

"Or just low blood." Al replied evenly. His expression said that he was mentally adding several degress of severity to Sam's complaints, but was willing not to make an issue of it. He took the tray from the night stand and settled it on the bed between them. "Well, I've donated enough blood to know that it wouldn't be a good idea for you to take any of the asprin or ibuprofen that I've got in the medicine cabinet, but maybe some food will help. Lucky for you, I always keep this place pretty well stocked and it hasn't been long since I resupplied.

He stared lifting lids, revealing a plate of steak and scrambled eggs. There was a platter of homemade biscuits, with butter and blackberry jam on the side.

"I know you're usually more the fruit and cereal type for breakfast, but I figured you'd need some extra fuel tonight. I hope you feel like eating."

"I'm starving," Sam admitted honestly. He grabbed the plate of steak and eggs and dug in, sighing with pleasure at the first mouthful. He'd never been so hungry or tasted food so flavorful before. Well, except for his mother's cooking when he'd leaped into himself at age sixteen.

Al poured a cup of tea for him and shifted the pot and he juice pitcher to the night stand, safely away from Sam's flying fingers. He leaned back on his elbow to watch Sam eat in silence for a few minutes, somewhat bemused by the other man's total concentration on the meal and by his obvious enjoyment of it.

"You know," Al mused as Sam chased a final bite around his plate, "that's the one thing I really miss. Eating just isn't the same now. Food has absolutely no appeal for me. No effect on me either, as far as I can tell. I'm just lucky I can still enjoy my cigars."

"Oh, yeah." Sam rolled his eyes. "That's real luck." he drained the last of his fourth glass of orange juice and looked down at his empty plate rather mournfully.

"I think you missed a couple of crumbs over there," Al pointed helpfully. Sam smiled sheepishly.

"It was great, Al. Thanks. I'd forgotten what a good cook you are."

"It doesn't take a master chef to make steak and eyes, Sam. But I'm glad you liked it."

"I did," Sam affirmed. He watched Al stack the empty plates back onto the tray and stand up to move the whole tidy mess to the night stand again. When Al settled back onto the bed, Sam was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to touch him. He reached out -- and Al's hand met his in the air, intuitively reaching back before Sam's own movement had been half completed.

Their eyes met, bottomless brown to deep hazel, and both of them felt the solid connection between them that went beyond the physical touch and made them a part of each other. After a moment, Sam smiled and laced his fingers with Al's.

"I told you we were meant to be together," Sam said.

"Yeah, well." Al raised Sam's hand to his lips and kissed his fingers. "You don't have to rub it in, I believe you already."

Al smiled lazily back at Sam over their joined hands and Sam felt pure sexual heat flash through his body.  
"What if I want to rub it in?" Sam asked suggestively, boldly. He tugged on Al's hand to pull him closer and leaned forward, succeeding in capturing Al's mouth with his.

It was their first real kiss, and Sam wanted to savor every sensation, every nuance of taste and touch. Al's lips were cool but they warmed under Sam's determined, loving possession. He made it a lingering kiss, gentle and demanding by turns, strong and yeilding, putting all of himself into it.

Al's head spun with all that Sam was laying bare in that one kiss. His passion, his devotion, his need. The promise of unyeilding love and total acceptance of Al's nature and needs. Al let go of Sam's hand to slide his arms around the other man, opening his mouth against Sam's to deepen the kiss. He pulled Sam's body in as tight against his as he could, hampered a bit by the bedclothes and their positions. For the moment, all that mattered, all the reality he cared about was Sam in his arms, real and warm and solid and his.

Sam moaned, a low sound in the back of his throat and pulled away to breathe. His face was flushed, his eyes half closed with pleasure. He moved his hands over Al's shoulders to the back of his neck and took in a long breath. "Make love with me, Al."

Al blinked. "Maybe that's not such a good idea, Sam."

"Why not?" Sam leaned forward and brushed his mouth against Al's. "Don't you want me?"

"You know I do." Al framed Sam's face with his hands. "But we haven't really talked about how we're going on from here. Maybe we should settle some things about the future first."

"The most important things have been settled," Sam said. "We love each other and we're going to be together. We'll work out the details as we go. Right now I want you." He turned his head from side to side, kissing Al's palms one after the other. "I want us, Al. Our connection, our lovemaking."

Al still hesitated, searching Sam's eyes, Al's hands sliding to Sam's shoulders to physically hold the other man away from him.

"You're sure, Sam? Not just about this, but about Donna? She's a pretty big detail to work out."

Sam shook his head. "Donna deserves somebody who can love her with his whole heart. That isn't me." He sighed. "And if I'm honest, I'm being totally selfish, here, Al. I want you more than I could ever want Donna. I'm not going back to her. And that's probably the best thing I can do for her."

"I don't think she's going to agree with that," Al said. He stared into Sam's face for another long moment, then finally nodded. "I just want you to be sure."

"I am." Sam pushed against Al's hold on his shoulders and tugged with his hands at the back of Al's neck to bring their mouths together. Al allowed the contact, kissing back with no little expertise. But then he pulled away again.

"Wait, Sam. Are you sure you're up to this?"

Sam snickered, his eyes dancing at the unintentional pun and Al frowned at him. "You know what I mean, wise guy. With the amount of blood I took, it's gonna take more than a few hours for you to recover."

"I'm feeling a lot better," Sam assured him. And he actually was. His headache had eased considerably and the food had taken care of his shakes and the hollow feeling. But what was helping him the most was simply having Al close. And he knew if he'd been on his deathbed, he'd still want Al, to touch him and hold him and kiss him with his last breath. "As for being up to it," he added breathlessly and took Al's hand in his. He dragged Al's hand under the covers and to his groin. He pressed Al's palm over his hard organ, the erection covered only by Sam's cotton boxers.

Al gave a low, teasing whistle and caressed the hot cock under his hand. Sam moaned and spread his legs, pressing Al's hand harder against him. "Please," he gasped, swallowing hard.

"Okay, baby," Al murmurred. "Okay." He stood up and stripped away the bedclothes that covered Sam from the waist down. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bed. Sam moved against him, wrapping himself around Al.

"God, I love you," Sam whispered. He kissed Al's mouth deeply, hungrily, and then kissed his way down Al's jaw to his neck, nibbling lightly between kisses. His fingers were busy with the buttons on Al's shirt but Al caught his hands, preventing him from parting the fabric to touch the skin beneath.

"Just a minute, Sam."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, exactly." Al let go of Sam's hands to wind his arms around Sam's waist. "I just want you to remember, there are some things about me now that are different from mortals. Things that might turn you off -- "

Sam put his fingers over Al's mouth and shook his head. "It's still you, that's all that matters, not what's different."

Al kissed Sam's fingers and looked at him tenderly, love burning brightly in his dark eyes. "You're too good to be true. Are you sure you're real?"

"I'm as real as this," Sam said and kissed him with deep passion, his mouth clinging sweetly to Al's.

Sam stripped away Al's shirt and helped him shimmy out of his pants. Al tugged off Sam's shirt and they each pulled off their own underwear to lay naked flesh to naked flesh for the first time.

Sam recognized the differences that had concerned Al. He couldn't hear or see Al breathe, and the only discernible heartbeat was his own. Al's body temperature was noticeably below normal, though with increased activity it warmed a bit. It was all a little unnerving, but he quickly accepted the strangeness. As he'd said, it was still Al, and nothing could overrule the love and desire he felt for the person inside the changed body.

Al's body might have been cool but the feel of it over his struck a fire in Sam. He writhed under Al's hands and mouth, moaning and gasping, returning the caresses just as urgently as Al gave them. Every sensation seemed to have an echo, and he could hear words of love and desire that were driving him crazy with lust. When he realized that Al wasn't speaking those words aloud, the purely scientific portion of his mind seized on the anomaly, worrying with it as if it was an unsolved equation.

When the answer came to him, he tugged Al's head up from his chest, shivering as possessive lips slipped from his hard nipple. He struggled to form a coherent question.

"Al?"

"Yes?" Al drawled, dipping his head to lick over Sam's wrist, his tongue swiping the sensitive area that his fangs had penetrated just that morning.

Sam's hard cock jerked and his hips automatically thrust upward, rubbing himself against Al's body deliriously. He clutched Al tight and moaned, but managed to cling tenaciously to his chain of thought. "Are you in my head?" he asked.

Al paused in his sensual assault on Sam's body and Sam could feel him pulling back, both physically and mentally. He could also sense something like shame emanting from him. "It's okay," he said, "I just want to know what you're doing. You did it this morning, too, didn't you?" he realized.

"I'm sorry," Al said. He touched Sam's face with one hand. "It's kind of part of the package. An instinctual survival skill kind of thing, I guess. I'll try to control it."

Sam remembered that morning when desire had threatened to wipe out his thought and will. He could see how the ablity to enhance or to focus a 'donor's' attention on intense sexual pleasure would come in handy for taking blood without a struggle or even detection. But he wasn't being coerced or tricked, and he certainly didn't feel threatened.

"You don't have to control it on my account." He grinned. "In fact, I kind of like it."

"Are you sure, Sam?" Al was looking relieved but a bit doubtful.

"Can't you tell?" Sam laughed breathlessly and pushed his aching erection into Al's belly. He bit his lip when Al reared back and reached down between them to fondle the organ, and he reciprocated, taking Al's own hard dick in hand. "God, Al! Let's do it, please!"

"I thought you might have noticed by now that we are doing it," Al teased. He held Sam's cock in his hand and rubbed his thumb over the swollen tip, smearing a pearly drop of pre-come over the straining, red head. Sam's entire body jerked and his hands went to Al's hips trying to pull him down on top of himself.

"You know what I mean, dammit! Take me."

He spread his knees wide and urged Al between his legs and down over his body. He kissed Al's ear and drew his tongue over it's seashell curves. Al shivered, and shivered even harder at the words Sam whispered into his ear. "Fuck me, Al, please!"

Al looked into Sam's face. His own eyes were bright with desire and his skin was flushed, proving that vampires can blush. "Is that really what you want, Sam?"

"Yes." Sam's voice was strong and clear, his eyes hungry and certain. "I want you inside me."

Al pressed his body over Sam's to kiss him deeply, tongues dueling for space in each other's mouths. Then he leaned over and reached into a drawer of the night stand for a tube of lubricant. He took care of the necessities quickly yet thoroughly, lubing and stretching his lover, determined to cause as little actual pain as possible. Al put his hands under Sam's butt, lifting him a little. Then he was sliding into Sam's body, sinking his cock slowly into tight, slick heat.

Their eyes locked as Al impaled Sam, neither man so much as blinked, totally intent on the joining. The sensations spread throughout their bodies, a tsunami of pleasure. Al didn't realize that Sam wasn't even breathing until he was all the way in him, and his lover let out an explosive breath, breathing in rapidly.

"You hurt?" Al asked.

Sam shook his head. "I'm great! It feels like coming home, Al."

Al leaned down to kiss him again and Sam wrapped his legs around Al's waist, locking his heat to Al's coolness.

Al pulled back and began to thrust, rocking into Sam's body, watching Sam's face as his eyes glazed and his breathing grew ragged. Al welcomed Sam's passion and let his own desire slide deeper into Sam's mind. He could feel Sam's excitement quicken at the rare, added intimacy of sharing emotions as well as bodies.

They didn't quite join on the same soul deep level they'd reached that morning, but this sharing was even sweeter because Al was no longer guilt-ridden and it was without the dark taint of the Blood Hunger.

They climaxed together, in perfect harmony. Sam pulled Al down wrapping his arms and legs around him to hold him in place. He soothed his hands over Al's back in treasuring strokes, utterly content with the moment. He could feel Al's satisfaction and his own reverberating between their bodies and minds. He couldn't imagine ever feeling so much a part of another person or ever needing anyone else in all the ways he needed the amazing person in his arms.  
"Don't ever leave me," Sam whispered.

"I'll always be right here, Sammy." Al kissed Sam's cheek and slid his arms beneath him to hold close. He wouldn't be the one to leave. But someday Sam would leave him, forever. While they lay together, still as close as any two seperate beings can ever get, Al contemplated the line that separates mortal from the near immortal, and the short span of human life compared to a vampire's. When the time came, how would he ever have the strength to let Sam go?

Both of them were reluctant to leave the cabin but they knew they couldn't put off rejoining civilization indefinitely. Their disappearing act would require explanations enough already. And though neither of them spoke Donna's name, both of them were thinking about her. Sam was determined to make a clean break with her, for all their sake's, but he wasn't looking forward to the inevitable confrontation. He felt guilty that he didn't feel more guilty over the way he was treating her, but he couldn't seem to help it that his own happiness was all he could focus on.  
And he was amazingly happy. He felt absurdly like it was his wedding day. Every time he looked at Al or felt Al's eyes on him, he experienced a surge of love so strong it almost made him dizzy. He wasn't naive enough to believe that being in love would smooth all the inevitable bumps in the road ahead of them. But he had enough faith in himself and Al and their relationship to believe they could always find some way over the rough patches. Even the supernatural ones.

There was a service station not far from the foot of the mountain with a convenient pay phone outside. Al called the project to check in and reassure everyone that they were fine and on their way back. Sam stayed in the car and watched him. Al's back was turned toward him, but he could tell just from the former Observer's body language that something in the conversation was upsetting him.

Al turned around and looked briefly toward Sam, then turned back and ended the conversation quickly. Sam felt a twist of dread in his stomach as he watched Al walk the few feet back to the car.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, as soon as Al slid into the driver's seat.

Al hesitated a moment before he replied. "I talked to Verbena. She said that Donna is very upset. She had a screaming fit in the control room this morning when Ziggy wouldn't tell her where you were. Verbena tried to talk to her but Donna took off. She stayed gone most of the day and when she came back, she still refused to talk to Bena. She shut herself up in her quarters." Al tilted his head, watching Sam's face. "She won't come out or talk to anybody. Verbena's worried about her."

"I know she's hurting and I wish things could be different for her," Sam said. "But I can't give her what she needs, and I'd just be cheating all three of us if I tried." He looked back at Al steadily. "What did you tell Verbena?"

"What we agreed on. That I'm gonna retire from the Navy and the Project, and you came after me to talk me out of the Project part. That we talked into the morning and fell asleep. I think she's willing to believe it, officially, but I also think she knows something more is going on."

"Well, Bena's got good instincts and she's not dumb. She'll probably guess we're lovers."

Al shruged. "It's okay with me if everybody knows. It'll be a good reason for why I'm leaving the Navy, anyway."

"Better than anybody finding out the real reason is because you've joined the ranks of the undead," Sam intoned melodramatically.

"Hey, if I don't get to tell vampire jokes, you don't get to mock my new lifestyle."

"But can I still mock your clothing style?" Sam asked, eyeing Al's shirt with red and yellow polka dots on a purple background. He wondered if Al's yellow pants actually did glow in the dark, or if it was just his imagination? At least he wasn't wearing the matching yellow suit coat or the purple, red and yellow paisley tie.

Al shook his head sadly as he started the car. "I am just too far ahead of the fashion curve to get the respect I deserve. Someday, though, you'll be begging me to coordinate your outfits."  
Sam reached over and patted Al's knee."You just keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. Don't give in to reality until you have to."

"Putz."

Sam grinned at the growled insult and they fell silent. It was cloudy, the darkness absolute beyond the range of the car's headlights. The night pressed black and alien against the windows. It made the interior of the automobile feel cozy and safe, as if it was their own private universe. Sam leaned back in the passenger seat and watched the outline of Al's face vaguely illuminated by the glow from the dashboard lights as the miles rolled by.  
"You're quiet," Sam finally observed.

"So are you." Al glanced over at him. "You having second thoughts?"

"No way," Sam replied firmly.

"Maybe you should think things over," Al suggested evenly. "It's not going to be easy, having a relationship with a vampire, you know."

"You weren't easy when you weren't a vampire."

"I'm being serious, Sam. If you're with me, you'll have to give up a lot. Like any hope of living a normal life."

"I'll have you. That's all I want."

"But it's not all that you need. Or that you're gonna need in the future. Maybe this is a bad idea." He turned to look at Sam, piercing him with his sharp gaze. "It's not too late to change your mind. I won't hold it against you if you do."

"I'm not going to change my mind." Sam reached up and brushed his hand over the side of Al's face. " What do you expect me to do, Al? Just forget the last twenty-four hours? Everything we've been through, how I feel about you, what it's like to hold your cock inside me, or to touch your soul? You want me to throw that all away, just because it's not going to be easy for us to live a normal life? Like anyone ever really has a normal life, anyway." Sam shook his head. "I won't change my mind. I can't just forget what it feels like to love you."

Al pulled the car to the side of the road. They were only ten minutes from the Project. It was time to be absolutely certain, for both of them, before there really was no turning back.

"I can make you forget, Sam. I can make you believe none of that ever happened. We can walk back into the project with a story that everybody will buy, including you, and you can have your life back, the way it's supposed to be."

Al put his hands on either side of Sam's face, looking deep into his eyes, letting Sam feel the mesmerizing power of his vampire mind. "I can force you to forget."

Sam looked back at him calmly, without struggling though his heart was pounding in his chest. "You could try. You could probably even erase the specifics of what happened last night and this morning. But you'd have to rip out my heart and soul to stop me from loving you. You're too deep inside me, Al, and I've loved you for too long. Any life without you now would just be going through the motions of living. Besides, if you really wanted to make me forget, you would have done it last night or this morning. And you wouldn't have warned me first."

They stared at each other for a few moments, then Al sighed and kissed Sam. Sam kissed back, sweetly, letting Al pry his lips open foe a deeper taste.

"I hope your doubts are finally settled?" Sam said as Al leaned back in his own seat. "I'm not going to have to reassure you that I know what I want every few hours from now on, am I?"

"No. I think you're finally convinced me." Al glanced over at Sam as he turned on the car's engine. "But you can keep reassuring me, anyway. I like the way you do it."

"You like the way everyone does it, Al. Sam teased. He reached across the seat for Al's hand, stopping him before he could put the car in gear or pull back on the road. "Listen," He said, turning serious again. "There's something I've been thinking about." He paused and Al prompted him.

"What is it, Sam?"

"About you changing me, making me like you." Sam's fingers tightened around Al's hand. "I know why you want that. and I've been thinking, maybe you should do it."  
"No way, Sam." Al was adamant. "It's not what you want."

"Eventually, you're going to have to. Or I'll die and leave you all alone. I don't want that, Al. I can't stand the thought of leaving you or of either of us being without the other."

"You can't stand the thought of being a vampire, either."

"I could adjust."

"I'm sure you could. You can do anything when you set your mind to it." Al looked down at their joined hands. "Sam, I watched you go through hell for five years, constantly adjusting to being trapped in stranger's lives and stranger circumstances. I'm not going to put you in another hell of being trapped in a life you can't ever get out of."

 

"Not even if it's my choice?

"You don't know enough about what you're asking to make that choice. Al stared into Sam's eyes. "And based just on what you do know, can you tell me, honestly, that you're ready to give up the daylight? To never stand in the sun again? That you want to live by drinking blood from people? That you want to lie to your family or risk horrifying them with the truth?"

The answer rose in Sam's eyes, painted his face with emotion. Al squeezed his hand "I didn't think so."

"Al," Sam began, heavy emotion in his voice.

"Shh." Al interrupted him and put his fingers over Sam's lips. "I know. And it's okay. Besides, you need to be human to wrap up the project. You're gonna have to go to D.C. for the debrief and stuff. It would be hard to explain why you suddenly can't go out in the sun, or why you don't reflect in mirrors. And you've got medical exams to go through. Not to mention that you need to be able to be with your family. I understand, Sam."

"You always do," Sam leaned over and pulled Al into a loving kiss. When their lips parted, Sam pressed his forehead against Al's "I just want you to know that the leaps were never really hell when you were with me. I can stand anything, as long as I have you."

"Same here, kiddo." Al brushed another kiss on Sam's mouth. "The same here."

 

They used the underground parking lot at the project, returning the car that Sam had taken to its normal spot. Al grasped Sam's shoulder as he started to get out, making him pause.

"Have you thought about what you're going to say to Donna?"

"What can I say but the truth, at least most of it? That I care about her, but we're wrong for each other. We've grown in different directions and we don't want the same things anymore. There's been too much time and distance between us and we can't go back to the people we were when we first fell in love. She deserves more than I can freely give her."

"She may not see it that way." Al climbed out of the car, and Sam followed him, heading toward the underground entrance to the project complex. "Be careful with her, Sam. Donna's been under a lot of pressure for a long time. She's been wound pretty tight, these last few months especially. This is going to hit her hard. What if it's more than she can handle?"

"I'll help her as much as I can, but I can't stay married to her out of guilt or responsibility. And maybe she needs a new start as much as we do. Maybe realizing that it's over between her and me will set her free. Give her the impetus to find a life where she can be really happy."

"That would be nice." Al wrapped his arm around Sam's back and Sam stopped walking to turn into the embrace, making it a tight hug. They shared a gentle kiss and broke apart, walking hand in hand toward the door. And stopped.

Donna was standing in front of them, her hands behind her back.

"Donna," Sam said, letting go of Al's hand. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been waiting for you to come home, Sam. I asked Security to call me when you came through the gate."

Sam took a couple of steps toward his wife and away from Al. He was getting a funny feeling. Something about Donna's voice and the look in her eyes was off kilter. "Let's go to our quarters, okay? We need to talk."

"Sure, Sam. Just as soon as I take care of a little porblem." She pulled her hands from behind her back. One of them was holding a gun. Military issure, .45 caliber. She pointed it at Al.

"Donna!" Sam started to move, stopped as her gun hand moved in response.

"Careful, Sam," Al cautioned. He took a couple of steps sway from Sam. "Donna, we can talk about your problems, okay? Just put down the gun."

"No. You're a bad person, Al," she said scoulding him as if he was a badly trained dog. It would have been vaguely funny, if it weren't for the gun in her hand and the eerie look in her eyes. 

"You're always taking Sam away from me. I'm tired of it. It makes me sad, Al, because he can't love me the way he's supposed to because you make him so confused. So I have to get rid of you. And then he'll be able to see that we're supposed to be together."

"No, I won't, Donna." Sam spoke clearly and simply, as if to a confused child. "I won't like it if you hurt Al. It won't change the way I feel about him."

Sam was moving cautiously closer as Donna's attention and the gun wavered between him and Al. Al pitched his voice carefully to his lover. "Stop, Sam." His tone of voice was a command: Let me handle this. He turned all his attention on Donna, moving slightly to make her focus on him.

"Donna, you don't want to hurt anyone." She was staring at his eyes, caught by their golden glow. "Put the gun down, Donna. Everything will be okay. Just put it down..."

Her hand was lowering, her expression dazed as Sam held his breath while Al's hypnotisim weaved into Donna's brain. Just a little more and it would be over...

"No!" Donna jerked her head suddenly, breaking out of the spell. She brought the gun back up and she narrowed her eyes, looking more lucid but no less determined. "I know what you are. When Sam went into the Imaging Chamber to find you, I slipped into the control room and monitored his side of the conversation. I know everything. You're evil, and you seduced my husband, but you can't stop me from destroying you."

Inwardly Al was cursing. It figured that Donna would be one of the rare people who were immune to being hypnotised. Or maybe the problem was the loose screw she obviously had.  
Outwardly, he maintained a calm, level tone of voice. It looked like he'd have to do things the hard way.

"If you know what I am," Al said, "Then you know that gun won't hurt me."

Donna grinned. "The bullet will. It's silver, Al. My grandmother gave me a silver cross and chain as my first communion gift. The priest even blessed it for her. Today I had it melted down and made into a bullet." Her smile widened. "The gunsmith thought it was sweet, my wanting a silver bullet for my nephew who's such a Lone Ranger fan.I knew you'd be back here to gloat over me, showing your evil influence over my husband. But I'm going to save him from you."  
She raised the hand holding the gun.

Sam was watching Donna's finger on the trigger. Al was watching her eyes, gauging her readiness to shoot and gathering himself to take her down if he had to.

Then, alerted by the live video feed from the secruity camera mounted over the door, the secruity team arrived and threw everybody's timing off.

The team leader barked out a command, Donna pointed the gun squarely at Al, and Sam, seeing her finger began to tighten, lunged. Al moved too, trying to intercept Sam or the bullet before they collided. But even his vampiric abilities couldn't stop Sam from getting in front of him first.

One of the secruity team members hit Donna with a sleep dart to her neck, and she was out as she fell. Al knelt over Sam on the cold cement floor and found a hole in his chest frighteningly close to his heart. He put pressure of the wound, yelling at the security squad to get the medical team there, stat.

Hazel eyes were staring up at him when he looked down.

"God, Sam why did you do that? She couldn't have killed me. I'm already dead, remember?"

"I couldn't take the chance," Sam gasped. "Silver -- "

"I'm a vampire, not a werewolf. Jeeze, what kind of lame horror movies did you and Donna grow up with, anyway?" He wrapped his free hand around Sam's fingers. "Hang on, Baby."

"Change me, Al" Sm clutched at him. "I don't want to leave you..."

"I can't -- "

"Please, Al, Before it's too late." Sam's eyes were pleading with him, pain and terror in their depths. Terror, not of death, Al realized, but of leaving him. "Don't let me go," Sam whispered.  
Al kissed the fingers he held. "Shh. I'll take care of everything, Sam. I promise."

Al's face, bending close to his, was the last thing Sam saw before everything greyed out.

Sam woke up.

It wasn't what he expected.

His chest hurt, and his throat was dry and sore. He was lying in a hospital bed, an IV dripping into his arm. The room was familiar. One of the rooms at the Project infirmary. He turned his head, and Al was there, sitting by his bed, watching him with a deep, dark brown gaze.

"Welcome back," Al said. He reached for an insulated cup on the bedside table and spooned some ice chips from it for Sam.

"You're gonna be okay," Al told him as he fed him the chips. "It's lucky that the gunsmith that Donna went to didn't load a full charge into that bullet. I guess he thought a souvenir bullet wouldn't be used anyway."

"You didn't change me," Sam whispered. "You promised, Al."

"I promised I'd take care of everything." Al set the cup back on the table and took Sam's hand. "The bullet didn't have enough punch to do any major damage. It broke a couple of ribs but didn't penetrate any further, thank God. They had to operate to take it out and stop some bleeding, repair the damage. They put some blood back in you while they were at it, too."

Al grinned with no humor. "When they saw what your blood count was, the doctors were a little confused as to how you'd lost so much blood from such a relatively minor wound. Needless to say, I didn't enlighten them." He smoothed Sam's hair. "And that's it, Sam. You weren't in any danger of dying."

"Did you know that, when you didn't change me?"

"No. I took a chance. I decided to let the doctors have a go at you. And the way it turned out, I'm glad I did. You're not ready to come across, Sam. You've still got things to do in the mortal world."

"I'm not ready to leave you, either. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It means the world to me," Al squeezed Sam's hand and looked into his face. "I'm not ready to let you go, Sam. That's why I stayed with you the whole time. If anything had gone wrong, if you'd ever been in real danger of not making it, I think I would have changed you, right there on the operating table. In front of everybody. But I'm glad I didn't have to do it. I'm afraid you'd hate me for it later on."

"I could never hate you." Sam grasped Al's hand tighter as he saw the fire burning in his eyes, knowing it was Al's love for him. "Someday, maybe I'll really be ready, Al."

"Or maybe not," Al replied. "But either way, it's okay, Sam, as long as we've got sometime to be together." Al had always known that love wasn't free. There was always a price to be paid. But whatever it would cost him later, this love was worth it.

They locked eyes for a long moment, as always speaking volumes with a simple look, making promises, heart to heart. Then Sam sighed and closed his eyes. Al thought he might be falling back to sleep, but after a moment, he opened his eyes again and spoke, his tone of voice guarded.

"What about Donna?"

"She's secured in one of the treatment rooms here in the infirmary. Beeks has been in with her. She's pretty much catatonic, Sam. Verbena says it's hard to tell right now, but it could be a long time before she comes out of it. It's possible she may never recover."

"I pushed her over the edge," Sam said. "I should have listened to you and never changed her history. I left her, and forgot her, and fell out of love with her. I destroyed her, Al, because I was selfish and spoiled."

"You're too hard on yourself, Sam. There's always enough blame to go around in any situation. You, me, Beeks, we're all gonna blame ourselves for Donna, and we're all responsible for letting her go over the edge. Even Donna herself is to blame because she didn't look for help. But beating yourself up won't do any good. We have to live with it, and go on."

Sam nodded, thinking quietly for a while. "She knows about you," he said.

"Who's she gonna tell who will believe her, even if she remembers it when she comes out of her trance? I don't think we have to worry about that."

"I don't want to worry about anything," Sam said tiredly, crossly. "I'd just like to have a little time to enjoy my own life and being with you. Is that too much to ask? Why does everything have to be so complicated?"

"Beats me." Al shrugged. "I think it's like a Commandment or something. Thou shalt have complications!"

Sam laughed in spite of himself and then groaned. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts."

"Okay. Here's something totally serious. Solemn, even." Al looked deep into Sam's eyes, so far he could see his own reflection, the one of his soul that no mirror had ever shown him. "I love you, Samuel Beckett. Forever and ever."

"I love you, too." Sam gripped his lover's hand firmly, feeling the connection between them that went so deep that not Time or life's complications or even death had been able to break it. It had only been defined and strengthened by all they had been through. It had made them each other's lifeline and home."Forever and ever, Al. Forever and always."

 

The End

When the night has come,  
and the land is dark  
and the moon is the only light we'll see  
I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid  
just as long as you stand by me.  



End file.
